The Ready Set’s Jordan Witzigreuter has been churning out sugary-sweet laptop pop since 2007, but the million-selling success of 2010 single “Love Like Woe”, with its indelibly catchy hook and J.R. Rotem co-sign, still caught most everyone by surprise. The ensuing album, I’m Alive, I’m Dreaming, featured a number of equally great (if not better) tracks, but none set fire to the singles chart. Now he returns with the seven-track Feel Good Now EP, and while nothing here quite rises to the dizzy-dream highs of the last album’s “Stays Four The Same” or carries the heartstring-tugging heft of that collection’s “Spinning” or bonus track “The Ghost Of Los Angeles,” there are a lot of things here for a dedicated Ready Set fan to like.

Ironically, though Feel Good Now seems to be pretty clearly angling for repeat radio success, the singles here are by far the weakest of the EP’s tracks. Current single “Hollywood Dream” strings together a series of fish-out-of-water clichés without bringing anything new to the affair, bookstopped by a “she could be the ‘Hills’ to my ‘Beverly’” chorus that masquerades as clever on first glance. And lead single “Young Forever,” an overly (and overtly) ambitious wannabe teen party anthem, lingered at the bottom end of the charts for a while but never sniffed the Top 40. 

Dig deeper though and Witzigreuter’s gifts as a tunesmith start to shine through. The chorus on “Back To Back”’ is a winner, though the leadoff verse’s Nicki Minaj-style bipolar outbursts don’t really fly when coming from a dude who spends the whole rest of his EP playing up his sensitive-guy side. “Operator”’s refrain is even better, a toothy back-and-forth duet (with himself) with a scribbly digital-funk lead in. “Killer” bounces along on Witzigreuter’s trademark wordplay, something the singles really suffer the lack of, and a cabaret-pop vibe that rings of Panic! At The Disco. All are, if nothing else, a lot of fun. 

There’s really no point in examining Feel Good Now as an album; there’s no real musical journey here, no overarching theme (beyond, well, feeling good now) – just a collection of songs to be taken on their own terms. Still, album-closer “Notions”’s easy melody and relative breeziness are a nice flashback to the sounds of The Ready Set’s debut Tantrum Castle album. It’s a pleasant takeaway from a solid collection of songs.

★★★☆☆

*This review was composed by Jesse Richman