action group

Songs written in bedrooms are torn apart and reworked in the practice room, and again transformed in the live show. This collaborative approach, and openness to ideas and discussion, is perhaps what makes Action Group’s influences so varied, and their sound so diverse and genre defying.

Their songs involve drums, guitar, bass, keyboard, synthesisers - moments of electronica crashing into snatches of sunny vocal harmony, rhythms crossing and changing - and the odd sample thrown in for good measure. Mystified by anything other than eclecticism, Action Group’s sound will undoubtedly continue to evolve.

October 2008 sees the band going back into the studio to record an EP of electronic/rhythm oriented stuff, which will be closely followed by an album proper, following on from their debut album Greed, recorded in 2007 on a shoestring but without compromise. - Ten Tracks

Action Group 'Greed'
Edinburgh sextet Action Group's first album displays a confidence not normally discernable on debut LPs. The disregard for structure and point blank refusal to conform to any one genre, combined with the nomadic and sprawling quality of this album, justifies Broken Social Scene comparisons. Here we have 15 diverse tracks, each with disparate licks, riffs and beats, woven into one rich, restless and frantic tapestry that nods proudly to it's influences, before shagging their wives and making off into the sunset. From the Pixies-esque bassline of Breaking Windows to the Mr E melancholy of Salvage Song or the 80s electronica of Burn You With My Lasers, it's more absorbing with each listen. Although lyrically reflective and dark, Greed doesn't languish and is driven by the effervescent rhythmic backbone. Their maverick, alternative employment of instrumentation, sound effects and production (see Swag) indicate that as excellent a taster as this is, we should be hearing a lot more from Action Group. (Finbarr Bermingham) - The Skinny

Discounting the occasionally slightly home-made quality of these recordings, the debut album by Edinburgh’s Action Group signals the arrival of a band whose progress should definitely be kept track of. An indie-pop quintet with a fine line in insistent choruses and electronic incursions, it’s easy to imagine some modest-budget production work turning them into serious contenders on the national scene.
In basic terms, everything they need is in place, from winning Pixies-style rockers like ‘Breaking Windows’ and ‘Monkey on My Back’ to the proto-Syd Barrett psychedelia of ‘Wedding Bell Craze’ and a Brian Wilsonesque penchant for echoing harmonies and technical experimentation. Someone just give them some money, and see how good they can be. (David Pollock) - The List

Later on, home-brewed act Action Group finally took to the stage, apologising for their delayed start. An introduction from the organisers would have been a nice touch to announce the headliners, but instead the band let their music do the talking. Their mash-up of Pixies-sounding tunes, quirky rhythms and penchant for hitting things for percussive effect certainly makes them a watchable act.

Lots of colour and lots of noise, the Capital-based band have been on the go since 2004 so it's little wonder their tunes are confidently nailed tight. With tunes such as their monstrous beast Breaking Windows and the ticking bomb of Can You, rarely has a band accommodated acoustic instruments alongside synthesisers so well. One of the band members was wearing some sort of sling during their set, which just goes to show it'll take more than a sprained limb to keep this group from springing into action. (Barry Gordon) - Edinburgh Evening News

'This is called "Can You",' Action Group leader Pete Boggon nonchalantly informed us by way of unveiling the next song. 'And this one hurts too.' Such effortlessly self effacing rhetoric is why the Edinburgh quintet offered so many more grown-up thrills than the endearingly snotty Acute and Glaswegian anthem factory the Cinematics, the other bands on this quality local triple bill.
What they're taking action against isn't defined but one can only hope it's the entourage of piss-weak bands who throw similar poses without a fraction of this lot's guile and knowing assurance. From the Sonic Youth infected 'Monkey on my Back' to the wonderful surf guitar of 'Breaking Windows', it does indeed hurt, but in a good way. (David Pollock) - The List

The shuddering tempo of Action Group, full of looping basslines and vicious full-bodied riffs, this frantic performance expertly pays homage to the swelling sound of Canadian experimentalists Broken Social Scene. - The Skinny

Showcasing a brand new sound, with fresh beats, new melodies and a new drummer, it's the NEW Action Group. Last time they played Limbo (January), the group took everyone's breath away with a stripped down 'acoustic set' (featuring 'Toshiba beats') that really exposed how good their songs actually are, without all that heavy guitar action (group) of before. They seem to have taken this vibe and run with it for the new songs, bringing the vocals to the fore and letting the guitars take more of a back-stage role in the mix, with a lighter, airier more rhythmic sound that still doffs its cap to the classics of rock and pop (with hints of Beck in the vocal styles and some Beatles-style song-craft going on, among myriad other influences) but basically manages to sound like, well, no one else really. We love Action Group! And so will you. (Andy Richardson) - Limbo at the Voodoo Rooms

...coming from an entirely different direction Action Group, a dance-punk sextet mixing Philly soul with fuzzy guitars to fleetingly brilliant effect - The Scotsman

Action Group (4/5) is certainly an apt name for this finale, being as they are a group full of movement and energy. Leading with a multi-vocal, multi-guitar onslaught of sound, tonight they incessantly deliver and succeed in lightening the mood. They rely on songs often driven by bass lines that scuttle along the floor before creeping up the spine. Unfortunately some songs end just as they seem to get going, and their three-part vocal harmonies can be overwhelming at times. That's all just nitpicking though, as the night clearly belongs to this home-grown quintet. [Neal Parsons] - The Skinny

Edinburgh stalwarts Action Group are soon to return as a complete outfit after a period of intense creativity (which never really stopped), not without its frustrations (which never really end), with a logistically rationalised and slimmed down four-piece line-up. Following the release of last year's highly playable and well received, if perhaps predictably little circulated album, Greed – as is almost inevitably the case with any self-produced release however acclaimed by those reviewers who actually get to hear it. All credit to them, the core of the band, as ever, remains undaunted. The key song-writing duo of Pete Boggon and Mark Donnelly, who having decided to fill previous bassist Derek Mckinnan's shoes themselves, now rotate his duties with guitar, keyboard and whatever else they've had lying around the rehearsal room they have retained, along with guitarist and fellow founding member Dylan Mitchell, for the last six months. The sound has moved on however, as well it should. To the insider, they never looked like standing still creatively, despite the difficulty of tying down a good drummer since Kenny McCabe grudgingly departed, struggling to juggle his happy-time with the responsibility of containing his multiplying clan of nippers. Boggon, Donnelly and Mitchell are now joined by (get this) Adam Bond Thomson! for this only slightly fresher, but hopefully much refreshed line-up's debut at The Voodoo Rooms.

The stock of bizarre in-jokes and private humour that has helped keep the core of the band together (to the extent of Mitchell's limited edition 'Quarter Moon' T shirt - don't ask) has been much in evidence in their live performances, and it makes for a joyous and apparently confident tone, whatever the farcical circumstances that any Edinburgh band must confront just to get a paid local gig worth the taxi fare. The band's own attempt to make light of some streaks of particularly shitty luck by blaming occult forces, the so called "Curse of Action Group" - from the loss of 100 advance copies of Greed intended for the album launch, couriered at the last minute to the wrong address and nefariously signed for by God-knows-who; to the fiasco at Belladrum Festival last year where, rescheduled in competition with the headline, and out of earshot of festival goers in a remote tent bizarrely outside the main venue, they played to a driver, a photographer, girlfriends, Kenny's kids and a handful of lost souls, and still – lest they disappoint them - played it with admirable gusto: "take the tease" as they say.

Action Group have a sophistication born of nigh on three years of these and other trials – as well as the occasional, well earned tribulation. Their expanding musical encyclopaedia of influences is always acknowledged in an original way, and is furthermore grounded in strong, personal songwriting and arrangements – if you have not heard them live thus far, then the Greed album is still evidence of this previous form - all 14 tracks of it – and as a valuable document in itself, will certainly be more widely appreciated down the line. Far more stylistically varied and daring than the simplistic teen-fodder audiences are more often than not subjected to, Action Group are never-the-less undeniably, and unashamedly pop – or perhaps rather an articulate comment on it: if you cant beat it, be fascinated by its most interesting relics, then rip them to pieces and put it all back together again in a currently relevant form. This fodder is a challenge for musically curious ears and intellects. Having produced Greed ostensibly to resolve a body of work, do it justice and finally put it to bed with a bar code and a clean conscience, the forthcoming gigs will be a sounding board for newer material, unheard outside their soundproofed Ferry Road hangout.

The "Curse" is unfounded when one considers how many of Edinburgh's venues they have outlived - and belies their obvious determination thus far. Indeed, their first two remarkably well-attended gigs in 2005 were in the very same building in its previous incarnation, then function rooms of the Café Royal - now a much improved band orientated venue, not least in the stage and sound departments. This original fan-base may have gradually drifted off to Metropolitan climbs over the years to pursue their own creative endeavours, but in any case Action Group deserve the much wider recognition that is their ultimate ambition, and a forthcoming date with the Wicker Man in July can only help. Further trials and their different sounds lie ahead.
Andrew Macdonald - Daddy Mac