Cool solo new wave/synth pop project from the now New York-based Ian Rose, formerly of Sorry State cronies Natural Causes!

Our take: Status Set is a solo project from Ian Rose, who used to play in a bunch of North Carolina bands like Last Year’s Men and Natural Causes (whose second LP Sorry State released in 2017). With nine fleshed-out tracks, I’d call Music for Cowards Status Set’s debut album rather than just a demo tape. If you liked Natural Causes, there’s a good chance you’re going to like Status Set too, since Ian wrote around half of the songs in NC and writes all the songs for Status Set (the other half of Natural Causes’ songwriting team, Ben Carr, now helms the great band Personality Cult). While Ian's songs for Natural Causes felt darker and incorporated the repetition and dark melodies of post-punk and electronic music, Status Set feels like pop music, albeit dense, clever, and ambitious pop music. The album closer, “Snakeskin Bag,” is a microcosm of the album since it starts with a brooding, cold wave synth sound but, after two minutes of building tension, climaxes in a sweeping, melodic chorus with layers of vocal harmonies… it’s sort of like the transition from early Depeche Mode to Yaz or early Human League to Dare, but over two-and-a-half minutes. This is probably just a case of mining the same influences, but I also hear a lot of the later Whatever Brains stuff in Status Set. Like the later Brains, Status Set sounds like someone into electronic and noise music developing their pop chops. A killer release, and essential if the names above mean anything to you.