Considering how grand and satisfying a listening experience this whole record is, it may be surprising to learn that The Delines built it almost as an afterthought following 2025’s ‘Mr. Luck And Ms. Doom.’ These were tracks that had been leftover following those sessions, which makes it quite remarkable how cohesively stitched together this all is as a thematic song sequence. Call it a concept album or a piece of audio cinema, however you view it, ‘The Set Up’ is a deep and fantastic work. The album begins with ‘The Set Up Pt 1’ which with its mournful, late night street corner ambience and forlorn trumpet figure occupies a similar space to Springsteen’s ‘Meeting Across The River.’ Placed here however, as a scene setting curtain raiser it plays more like an overture while our narrator tells the story of an arsonist burglary that went rather well for the perpetrators. A trace of envy is easily detectable in the voice, imagining them today with their feet in the Spanish sand. That desire for escape, to be free from living a life on the poverty line is keenly felt throughout the album and explicitly stated in the title of ‘Can You Get Me Out Of Phoenix.’ This is a stunning piece of music, warm as southern soul but contemplative and yearning too, it resists the temptation to dream of a better life by remembering all the things that can go wrong. This actually serves as a set up lyric for the gut punch of death that arrives halfway through the song and yet, somehow, we are still lifted by the slow pulse of the music even while our feet remain grounded in reality.

‘Jumping Off In Madras’ reprises that aching, streetlight trumpet, its role on the album becoming something akin to a wordless secondary voice. This is actually a clever detail by The Delines because some of these audio tracks are plainly beautiful, even as they feel covered in sorrow, and warrant some appreciation simply as images in sound. That said, ‘Dilaudid Diane’ is built on a simple church-like piano with organ figure and punches through thanks to a vocal that is positively bleeding with empathy as it recalls the sad tale of the Diane in the title. ‘Keep The Shades Down’ is a let’s get it on soul gem with a difference, as the cajoling for human connection is played out despite a background of enforced austerity and an unforgiving outside world. Maybe there are other songs that have essentially said “let’s make out because it’s all we’ve got to enjoy” but, at the moment, I cannot think of another that paints this scenario with such depth whilst avoiding any tired cliches. ‘Getting Out Of The Ward’ is another vivid instrumental, this time led by a piano movement that slides into waltz time and yet, as the music instils a sense of stepping out into the open, that trumpet again weighs heavy, as if the open air is fraught with tension and danger rather than a space to breathe easy.

‘The Set Up Pt. 2’ introduces a seventies crime movie texture, with the story of an embezzling Brenda again causing some approving thoughts for someone brave enough to do the necessary and get out. Another layer is subtly peeled away though, and these private revelations are revealed to be part of a bigger ruse later when we reach ‘Pt. 3,’ but I will not go all in with the spoilers and leave it there. For now, the next phase of this audio adventure is ushered in with another album highlight, ‘The Reckless Life.’ You can picture the scene, being regaled with these stories propping up a late-night bar, several drinks in as a vintage soul band fills the room with retro flavours, the moral of these stories being realised with the thought “a reckless life ain’t reckless until that one day when you finally get caught.” It begins to feel like the seeds of trouble are going to catch up with a few of the characters introduced on this journey. ‘Walking With His Sleeves Down,’ a distant cousin to ‘Mr Bojangles’ perhaps, tells the tale, over gentle sympathetic piano, of another good man beaten into submission by the struggle. ‘The Meter Keeps Ticking’ marches along musically even though the hospital bound figure at the centre of the song feels like he might make hell freeze over. When our movie concludes on the instrumental ‘The Last Time I Saw Her,’ the imagination brilliantly runs wild with what may have become of these souls, its pitter-pattering falls like a heavenly requiem. Wow, with records as well constructed and crafted as this coming out in 2026, I feel sure the album as an art form remains in extremely healthy shape, I give ‘The Set Up’ the biggest possible recommendation.

Danny Neill

You can get a physical copy of the album via this link: https://www.thedelines.com/