Album Review: Various Artists - Take Action Volume 10

The Take Action tour has been going strong for 12 years and has featured an array of bands as diverse as Jimmy Eat World, Thrice, Poison the Well and Avenged Sevenfold. As Shane Told says at the beginging of this CD in 'PSA', 5% of the money from this CD goes to selected chairities and in the 10 years that Sub City has been going, they have raised $2 million dollars.

Featuring an eclectic mix of well-known and underrated bands. The exclusive new songs including Silverstein's 'Stay Posi' featuring Ryan Key of Yellowcard which feels a lot more upbeat and poppier than their recent material. Bayside's 'Battle Scars' features a strong anthemic chorus behind a droning guitar sound that would not have sounded out of place on their self-titled album. However, that's not to say that the songs that aren't exclusive to this compilation aren't worth checking out, 'Living Saints' is a perfect introduction to Polar Bear Club who will be opening up the tour.

The remixes reinterpret some of the songs completely, the 'What is Light? Where is Laughter?' (by Twin Atlantic) remix by Skrillex features dubstep and drum & bass influences, which perhaps can be seen as out of place on this compilation, completely reimagining the song for a club environment whilst keeping Twin Atlantic's Sam McTrusty's accented vocals. The Step Brother remix of Circa Survive's 'I Felt Free' puts a much more relaxing drum beat behind the song alongside dreamy synth pads, the song is in a completely different form as to how it appeared on 'Blue Sky Noise' and is a personal highlight.

All Time Low's 'Alejandro' which circulated the internet and Tumblr blogs last year is featured on this compilation. The song is an entertaining acoustic rendition at Lady Gaga's horrible radio-friendly song and despite not being a fan of either Lady Gaga or All Time Low, it's worth a few more listens.

It's clear that this compilation has been divided by the discs, whilst the first disc featured mostly hardcore bands and louder songs, the second disc features a lot more radio-friendly pop-punk bands. The Wonder Year's cover of The Weatherkans 'Aside' is a hushed side of the band that we didn't really see that much on their previous album, 'The Upsides'. The song is sombre and creates curiousity in the listener to find the original.

Baring all of this in mind, the compilation does have songs that are abruptly stopped by the skip button, being a fan of Sparks The Rescue, I felt extremely underwhelmed by the new song and the I See Stars and Woe is Me remixes also played victim to the skip button. However, this compilation is for a very good cause and it's not a huge effort to just get rid of the songs you don't like.

4/5

'Take Action Volume 10' by Various Artists is available now through Hopeless Records.

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Words by George Gadd