Actionreaction "3 is the Magic Number" (Equal Vision)
By Lucas Salg
Tuesday. Sep 05, 12:02 AM
Too many identities and a lack of direction.

Actionreaction are a band with a serious identity crisis. Fronted by Jason Gleason, former crooner for emo stalwarts Further Seems Forever (which also spawned the wretched Dashboard Confessional), Actionreaction clearly want to be more than an emo band, but they can’t settle on a direction. Instead, their debut LP 3 is the Magic Number bounces around from genre to genre and relentlessly mars its songs with tacky bells and whistles.

The record begins decently enough with the one-two power-pop punch of “Sinner’s Algebra” and “Can You Hear the Sun?”, which surprised me with their catchy but slightly off-kilter melodies and driving rhythms. Unfortunately, Actionreaction have a strong tendency to pile on sounds and effects that don’t really belong there, as if they don’t quite believe in their melodies enough to let them stand on their own. Handclaps, keyboard effects, horns, random noises, all make their way into every single song and – over the course of 45 minutes – it gets real old, real fast.

Their other problem is a lack of vision, which leads them to bounce from genre to genre, giving the record an uneasy schizophrenic feel. After the promising first two tracks, the band make an egregious error by dipping into that horrible trendy disco-emo bullshit with “March On,” and the record never fully recovers. The band also mentions its own name in the lyrics here, so they lose about three billion points for that. From there on out, it’s a seemingly random assortment of sounds and styles, with every song trying to tackle too many things at once. Despite Gleason’s strong vocal presence (the dude admittedly can sing), the melodies and song structures are so all over the place as to make the album a non-entity. I seriously couldn’t recall a thing about the last half of the record even after listening to it multiple times.

This band has a lot of things going for them, and I give them points for at least trying to be original. But 3 is the Magic Number is too scattered and cluttered to make an impact. They need to find a unified vision and stop ruining their songs with tacked-on crap that doesn’t need to be there. Actionreaction definitely have potential to put out a winning record in the future if they get their shit together, but I really can’t recommend this one to anybody.
www.actionreactionmusic.com
www.equalvision.com

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Lucas Salg

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