CD Review: Action Directe - The Best Of: Under The Pavement, The Beach

I’m not sure how to feel about ‘Best Of’ collections. We can’t help feeling that they’re a ‘fuck you’ excercise in ridding your fans of hard-earned cash. Hats off then to Action Directe for sticking to their punk values and released their ‘Best Of’ for free download.

Things kick off with a thick slab of Industrial rock encompassing the first five tracks. Standout song ‘Kicking Love‘ is a great mix of growling punk venom, raw guitars and machine beats. Things then take a turn for the techno, starting with ‘Gattaca‘, dropping the punk side of things in favour of a more traditional four-to-the-floor Industrial beat. This trend continues (to some extent) straight through until ‘Playing With Monsters‘. There is some good songwriting and programming to be found here, but it seems that the band were struggling to find their sound during this period and as a consequence the production leaves something to be desired.

With ‘Better Dead Than Red‘ things are heading firmly back into punk territory. Actually, we found it difficult to tell if there were any electronics at all, this is the best track on the album. It drips raw attitude from every note and hits you with a great shout-along chorus and a sprinkling of ‘Oi! Oi! Oi’. Another worthy mention is ‘State Violence State Control‘ which keeps the raw attitude but takes a stroll back into the land of drum machines.

It’s clear from this collection that Action Directe know what they’re doing when it comes to Industrial punk. It might not appeal to hardcore electroheads but for fans of the genre’s heavier side, we definitely recommend checking this out. Given the price tag, what have you got to lose?

***/5

For more information visit the band’s Myspace and the album’s microsite.