by Ladies and gents, welcome to Northwest Music Month, our celebratory month of music where we’re highlighting one band a day throughout all of June, to help usher in a summer of local music. On this Saturday morning, we’d like to turn you onto one of our favorite local genre-defiers, Actionesse!
Coming straight out of the surprisingly fertile Seattle surf rock scene, Actionesse is a quirky rock quintet who’s been making headway in the local scene thanks to their playful approach to the genre. Well, it would be unfair to label them as just a surf rock band, since they pull from so many different styles – surf rock, indie rock, dance-rock, garage rock, pop-punk, ska rock… Here, let’s just call them the progenitors of their own new genre, “weirdo rock.”
Though Actionesse has a very small discography under their belts (a couple singles here and there, some demos, a to-be-released split), their current material has proven them to be a unique and must-know Seattle band. Often distorted and sometimes snazzy guitar leads by Ian Reed are matched with colorful horns courtesy of Joel Kenworthy. Party vibes emanate from each track this quintet pens; it’s simply impossible to be in a bad mood while listening to tracks like “New Age Beach Bums.”
Four Corners, a split between Actionesse and three other local bands, Asterhouse, Crystal Desert, and The Pro-nouns, has been getting attention already because of the effort and songwriting ability showcased by each band on the split. In our own review of it, our reviews editor mused on how Actionesse’s contributions are “less chaotic and are more about the surf-y grooves, shout-along choruses, and ass-whooping drum fills,” later declaring that Four Corners is “the sort of release that makes you happy to be in such a vibrant music scene. While some parts of Four Corners may not be easy to digest in the traditional sense, it’s a delectably formidable collection of tracks.”
Free-wheeling, technically proficient, and filled with enough body-shaking grooves to tire out a VHS aerobics instructor, Actionesse could very well be your new favorite band.
You can follow Actionesse and Facebook and Twitter, and sample the track “Hellbama” off Four Corners below. Click here to read our review of the Four Corners split. You can preorder the split at https://fourcornerssplit.bandcamp.com/album/four-corners-a-split.
