REVIEW: Duck Duck Goose – Love Will Set You Free [EP/2025]
Artist: Duck Duck Goose
Album: Love Will Set You Free – EP
Upon opening the email that contained the long-awaited EP from California mathcore act Duck Duck Goose, I was greeted with a brief sentence as a sort of disclaimer. “A lot of moving parts to move this train. We’re all older now, so with kids and jobs it took us 2 years to get this out.” I hadn’t really thought about just how long it had been since we’d gotten the last Duck Duck Goose release—the answer is about fifteen years with Off Yourself, if you aren’t counting music from Pollution People or KDNPRS—but the same thing was (and is) true for me. I have one more wife, one more kid, one more job and about one thousand more responsibilities than I did when Off Yourself released (senior year of high school, if we’re counting). If anything, this made me even more excited to see what an older—and possibly more mature—Duck Duck Goose might even sound like.
The answer? Still weird as all hell—in a complementary fashion. Love Will Set You Free is a wildly unpredictable eight minutes that very much follows in tune with the Duck Duck Goose legacy. Mesmerizing-but-caustic riffs unfurl before the listener’s very ears—the same ears that are greeted with everything from raw, dissonant shouts to soft, serene—if not unsettling—singing and punchy, explosive percussion. Love Will Set You Free hits like a love letter to the fans holding on since Noise, Noise and More Noise and Off Yourself. While it isn’t necessarily a reboot of either sound, nor is it totally sonically different, it remains in all ways a Duck Duck Goose record, and as such, is definitely something to be excited about.
At a paltry eight minutes, it might seem a lie to state that Duck Duck Goose cover all the ground they need to on Love Will Set You Free—but realistically, they do. “Before the Storm,” a sultry-if-not-kind-of-unnerving acoustic introduction track (and perhaps the first indicator that Duck Duck Goose are, indeed, back) sweetly takes the listeners hand between frail fingers with short-bitten nails before the one-two punch of “Disco Pigs” and “Set You Free” crunch, squeeze and contort the listener’s wrist like a paperclip in the hands of a bored and freakishly strong eighth grader. Here, a battery of pummeling percussion stampedes along under a salvo of frantic, dissonant fretwork. This same barrage carries over into “Violent Lights,” another jarring example of Duck Duck Goose crafting high-octane, short-but-sweet cuts that channel the same robust, ruthless organized chaos that made Noise a stand-out release. These two extremes—the unsettling calm of “Before the Storm” and the maelstrom that seems to teeter on pure chaos that is “Disco Pigs” et al—seem to reach a dialectic within “Hangman.” Here, hallucinogenic guitars echo and oscillate over sturdy, bouncy drumming in a more moderate candor that only rarely loses its composure and dips into blistering mania. This song in particular is more reminiscent of Off Yourself, relying less on pure energy and a little more on tact and pocket.
In the same way that Love Will Set You Free channels the multitude of instrumental styles that Duck Duck Goose have covered across their previous releases, the band’s vocal element covers plenty of bases in itself. You want the singing found on the end of “The Wonderful Wizard of LSD?” Well, you got it on the intro cut. You want shrill, high-pitched yelling that ebbs and flows into haunting cleanly-sung segments? “Disco Pigs” has you covered. You want raw yelling and a harsh, gritty mid-range? You’re starting to pick up on the theme, here. Love Will Set You Free sees the vocal styles abundant throughout both Noise and Off Yourself in spades—and on “Violent Lights” and “Disco Pigs,” the band are just as capable at cramming in memorable lyrics and one-liners that easily and deliberately worm their way into the listeners head where they stay stuck there readily.
While I wanted more than eight minutes from Duck Duck Goose on their first release in over a decade, Love Will Set You Free demonstrates that I didn’t need more than eight minutes—because while brief, there is (pun intended) so much to love about this EP. Chaotic, energetic, diverse and very, very fun, Love Will Set You Free is an excellent record, and something I’ve been wanting for almost fifteen years—even if I didn’t realize it.
Plus, we got new Duck Duck Goose and new HeavyHeavyLowLow in the same year; how cool is that?
9/10
For Fans Of: HeavyHeavyLowLow, Dr. Manhattan, Destroyer Destroyer, Abrupt Decay
By: Connor Welsh
