Action Action - An Armyof Shapes Between Wars

Sat 18th Feb, 2006 in Music Reviews

From New York, USA, we have four dudes with bad haircuts and an incomprehensible penchant for writing a good pop song. They are a part of the whole punk-goes-indie movement, so if you don’t own a stripey sweater and black-rimmed specs then get your hands on some immediately or beware the consequences.

2004 saw their debut for Victory Records, titled Don’t Cut Your Fabric To This Year’s Fashion, they toured relentlessly with the likes of The All American Rejects, Plain White Ts and Midtown, and sold in excess of 50,000 albums. They were quick to follow up with this newy, produced the legendary William Wittman, the guy responsible for tweaking the knobs on some of Cyndi Lauper’s work.

At the core of it all it is obvious Action Action want nothing more than to get your arse moving, and maybe show the punk kids that there’s a little more to music than three chords and distortion. Or maybe they just want to ride the trend of the “nouveau-wave movement”, describing the album as being for fans of The Killers, The Bravery and The Faint, to name a few.

Whether they’re riding the new-wave or not they’re skilled craftsmen in their field, Paper Cliché being a prime example. Electronic bass lines pounding along like the feet of a thousand marching soldiers creates a powerful juxtaposition to the organic rock sounds of the chorus, definitely one of the strongest songs on the album.

Smoke and Mirrors is a lot more ‘80s pop in style, synthesisers galore and creepy softly sung vocals, along with Oh My Dear It’s just Chemical Frustration. At other times some songs are almost completely devoid of the synths, and instead of this highlighting and contrasting these songs, they seem to get lost amongst the rest.

An interesting track to be noted is The Game, with a country-ish sound through the use of a slide guitar, it opens into what is sure to be a beautiful sing-along at Action Action gigs. The sing-along feel would make it a great album closer, and listening to it gets you thinking ‘It’s over already?’, a justified question at only five tracks in.

Then it’s an Eels like feel with What Temperature Does Air Freeze At, sounding like it was ripped off an old Walt Disney cartoon, something the Eels seem to do pretty well themselves. Move on to the next track for The Other 90% of the Iceberg and the album takes another turn with its interesting use of sound. For this it sounds like feedback and fuzzed up guitars were recorded and then the track was inverted. Again this is a case of the perfect orchestration of soft and gentle sounds against abrasive vocals and intermittent guitars. Whilst not poppy like much of the album, it’s a great change of pace two-thirds of the way in and brings on a slighter darker mood for the following tracks.

Closing the album is the acoustic ballad-like track, The Blanket Truth. Probably the most contrasted song on the album, scrapping this and moving track six to its place would seem a better move.

Out here in the land of Oz they are little known, but back in their homeland they are sure to gain an even larger army of fans. As sad as it is that it usually happens in such a way, their US success will hopefully trickle down here forcing people to take notice.

Don’t be ashamed, go on and dig up your Hypercolour, fluorescent green cap (don’t forget to wear it backwards) and your pumps that made you the coolest kid on the block back in the day – they’re about to do it for you again.