Action Verbs is a band that has seemingly not been together for that long, but have managed to create compelling music in a genre that is almost absent from most of today’s indie rock. Melding Joe’s melodic, but endearingly rough vocals with a thick guitar crunch and solid drumming, Action Verbs recall a time in American music where bands seemed tied to their home towns and scenes. The quintet, which also consists of guitarists Mike Norman and Jacob Halpern, bassist Brad Beaston, and drummer Matt Gershun takes the spiky guitar work of mid-90’s Chapel Hill bands such as Archers Of Loaf and smooth out the potentially alienating experimental passages, resulting in a sound that echoes Seattle’s grunge scene before it went plunging head on into self-pitying parody. That’s not to say there isn’t emotion present, however. Several unexpected yet melodic guitar parts rear their heads. At a point in a song like "To Never Again" where you would expect the band to simply ring out, an intricately plucked guitar part fills the gap. The song also sounds like a more working class version of current indie tastemakers The National, the crunchy guitar replacing the more ethereal parts that band is known for. "Whenever" starts out with a lockstep, tick-tock rhythm before it breaks out into a delightfully simple and hummable middle passage, the band bouncing around enthusiastically the entire time. "We have a good thing going here, and we’re trying to keep it moving," said Joe. Keep it moving they did, stretching into the band’s future. Action Verb’s in-studio session also served as the training grounds for an as yet untitled new song. So new, that Joe was still singing the lyrics from a printed out sheet of paper, while the rest of the band produced a series of cycling riffs and droning (but not in a bad way) verses. The song possessed a more epic quality than the two preceding it, a preview into the band’s potentially larger future sound. "The only thing that matters about this whole thing is that everybody is still having fun," says Beaston near the end of their set. No matter where the future may take Action Verbs, there is no doubting the sincerity and validity of Beaston’s statement. It’s something that is evident every time a new song revs up. - Erik Ziedses des Plantes
Action Verbs is a band that has seemingly not been together for that long, but have managed to create compelling music in a genre that is almost absent from most of today’s indie rock. Melding Joe’s melodic, but endearingly rough vocals with a thick guitar crunch and solid drumming, Action Verbs recall a time in American music where bands seemed tied to their home towns and scenes. The quintet, which also consists of guitarists Mike Norman and Jacob Halpern, bassist Brad Beaston, and drummer Matt Gershun takes the spiky guitar work of mid-90’s Chapel Hill bands such as Archers Of Loaf and smooth out the potentially alienating experimental passages, resulting in a sound that echoes Seattle’s grunge scene before it went plunging head on into self-pitying parody. That’s not to say there isn’t emotion present, however. Several unexpected yet melodic guitar parts rear their heads. At a point in a song like "To Never Again" where you would expect the band to simply ring out, an intricately plucked guitar part fills the gap. The song also sounds like a more working class version of current indie tastemakers The National, the crunchy guitar replacing the more ethereal parts that band is known for. "Whenever" starts out with a lockstep, tick-tock rhythm before it breaks out into a delightfully simple and hummable middle passage, the band bouncing around enthusiastically the entire time. "We have a good thing going here, and we’re trying to keep it moving," said Joe. Keep it moving they did, stretching into the band’s future. Action Verb’s in-studio session also served as the training grounds for an as yet untitled new song. So new, that Joe was still singing the lyrics from a printed out sheet of paper, while the rest of the band produced a series of cycling riffs and droning (but not in a bad way) verses. The song possessed a more epic quality than the two preceding it, a preview into the band’s potentially larger future sound. "The only thing that matters about this whole thing is that everybody is still having fun," says Beaston near the end of their set. No matter where the future may take Action Verbs, there is no doubting the sincerity and validity of Beaston’s statement. It’s something that is evident every time a new song revs up. - Erik Ziedses des Plantes