SET FREE

This is the 3rd album by AmAnSet I've bought, and I have to say, it's my favorite. This album has their most diverse collection of songs - some slow drones (JR), some acoustic (She's Half), and some straight up rockers (Green Green Grass). Their releases before this usually consist of slow tempo drones song after song - good for a quiet drive or relaxing, but I put on Set Free to sing along and rock out (a very subdued rock out). No song is too long or too short. She's Half takes my breath away every time. If you still aren't convinced, go to AmAnSet's website and you can download the demos for the whole album, which is what sold me.I love it so much - I bought it on vinyl too!

I continue to listen to almost all of these tracks months after buying the CD. That rare for me. There's always something of melodic interest, I like the mildly wry lyrics, and the studio recording is perfectly mixed. There's a studied quality to their music that might turn some folks off, but anyone who likes the mid-tempo tracks of Stereolab, for example, will likely enjoy this CD.Its a shame that the band seems to have broken up, but this is a great final CD for them if indeed this is the last we'll hear from them.

Amanset (American Analog Set) is a hidden gem of a band. This is a good CD to start with if you are interested in them. Know By Heart and From Our Living Room to Yours are the others I'd start with. I'm pretty baffled by the low-end grades this disc received. I really like it. It works as background, but it more than holds up to active listening. These guys are different and fun. Mellow and chill, but with some edge.

This is the first disc of this band that I have heard, and am suitably impressed. Good songwriting, nice vocals, and a warm well-engineered sound. I would agree with another reviewer's comparison to The Feelies, who themselves are sort-of descended from the Velvet Underground (Doug Yule era-think What Goes On). AAS seems to inject a little more melody into the mix, and a little less irony. Which, nowadays, is a good thing. Set Free has me definitely interested in digging a little deeper into the AAS catalog.

I was a little bummed out that it was warped.

Simple&amazing. One of my favorite albums to kick back and take it easy to. Favorite songs are "Cool Kids Keep" "The Green Green Grass" "First of the four" "Frickk this, i'm leaving..." The whole thing is soooo good! Buy This album!

The Austin-based drone-pop group American Analog Set are probably the most consistent band in pop music. Over the course of the last decade or so, they have released 6 LP's of really quite similar music. While some may dismiss this as a lack of versatility, I believe it is really quite remarkable, and a testimony to the talent of this band. Constantly re-inventing oneself (Radiohead) takes guts, talent, and fortitude, yes. But the opposite side of the coin is just as difficult. To continue making records so similar, yet unique, must be a phenomenally difficult thing. Granted, this isn't exactly the most challenging music in the world to create. But to have so many tracks released, and still sounding somewhat fresh, I must applaud their effort.Set Free, if it must be said based on the above paragraph, is classic AmAnSet. This band is some of the best laid-back party music I've ever heard. Its also fantastic for early morning drives to work when everything seems to be moving too fast. AmAnSet has the unique ability to somewhat slow down time. I find it quite difficult to be up-tight or panicked about anything with AAS playing in the background. Life just moves to a slower beat, and one to which I like walking. The production is solid, if unassuming, and the instrumentals play their parts well to a tee, which one could expect after a decade of making this music. Tracks to surely check out are "Cool Kids Keep" and "She's Half."

It's often been said by those of enough experience to know, if can you stick with and do something long enough you will eventually beat down those things that would undo you and excel at the craft at hand. As we circumnavigate all things cool and indie here in the Indian summer of 2005 we find the new Set Free CD by The American Analog Set as prime example # 1 of that very premise. Having been hipped to this disc some weeks back by the ever-prevalent boomkat.com I hopped onto this album pronto, day one.In the world where indie-alt-rock has plenty of kings and not many loyal subjects anyone with a hankering for the likes of Bedhead, Stars of the Lid, the Feelies, the Go-Betweens, Spoon, Elliott Smith and so-on and so-forth there is much to appreciate in the heart-on-sleeve, close-to-vest introspective songwriting, ushered up here with excellent execution thereof. On songs like Born On The Cusp, Cool Kids Keep, She's Half, Everything Ends, and The Green Green Grass you get the childlike wonder vs. the ancient sage thing working big-time.Packaged in the customary `too-cool-for-school' digipak the Set Free album seems destined for lots of college radio play and their fair share of best list. These are all friend ready songs without being too cushy or commercial. Having spent 13 months and five recording locations in three states I'd judge this band seasoned, ripe, and ready for a bigger audience and faithful following. There's a carefree confidence perking through the surface here that wears familiar without paying lip service. In these hot southern summers a term like lazily ambitious might apply. Up north they might consider this type of sustenance is a tad light for say `a spot on a Vice sampler CD' but it certainly has guts enough to walk down any 8 mile stretch of urban turf fare. Lest one can be made to forget, these hand-n-gloves songs can also make a fist. All of which bodes well for a band looking at decade number one in the rear view mirror.Keep in mind when you bevy up to the check out clerk, if this band came from Canada instead of Texas it'd be ballyhooed as the next big thing with critics gushing, gooing, and saying `ahhh'. Just lay back, let it roll, and take you where it will...down river, down stream, some place cool.