V/A – Take Action Volume 5 / 2006 Sub City / http://www.takeactiontour.com / http://www.subcity.net / Reviewed 10 February 2006

Of course, there are no bands that individuals have not heard of on Take Action Volume 5; the only individuals that can honestly be said to be under the radar are Solea and Darker My Love. If individuals are looking to find the next big bands in emo/hardcore/punk, this is not the disc to do it. However, there are still a number of reasons to pick up this album, the largest of which is that each purchase supports the Kristin Brooks Hope Center (raises information about mental issues). Another includes the fact that there are six different tracks that have not been released up to this point.

As is the case with volume four, the disc has a heavy amount of emo/hardcore acts that open the disc; before Boys Night Out’s ground-shaking “Medicating”, Underoath, The Fall of Troy, and Saosin all give the disc its own little bit of emo/metal mesh. The major eye-opening track on the first disc is Sugarcult’s “Crying”; it may just be the one track that moves beyond the emo/boy-band image that the band has cultivated the last few years and really allows the band to succeed on their own merits. Plain White T’s come forth with “Take Me Away”, a track that has more in common with Alkaline Trio than I’m sure the band wants to admit, but stands on its own nonetheless. Kudos has to go to Hawthorne Heights for coming up with a single in a track that has not previously been couched that way; “Silver Bullet” is done in an acoustic way that will wow in its simplisticity.

June breaks out their “Patrick”, a track that seems to do much in the traditional “emo” scene by including a guitar line that bristles with energy, coupled with multiple vocals. The brutal guitars create a dynamic tension with Emery’s “Studying Politics”; if a listener is not singing along with the music by the time the track has played through, they are seriously soul-less. Coming through with a track out of left field, Trustkill’s Bedlight For Blue Eyes mix soul with grating guitars to really show the two-sided aspect of love. Take Action Volume 5 mixes equal parts punk, emo, and hardcore to come up with something that will hopefully push hundreds of thousands of copies to both help the foundation and give each of these great bands an added amount of publicity for the new year.

Bedlight For Blue Eyes “Ephemeral Addictions”, Amber Pacific “Poetically Pathetic”

Rating: 6.5/10

[JMcQ]