The Action TimeVersus The World

History is always subjective, the past can be rewritten at will, and the only truth that ever matters is your own. In fact, if the rhetoric is strong enough then history can be cast aside altogether, allowing a new past to be fabricated that will then take on a new life of its own. The Nation of Ulysses claimed responsibility for a worldwide campaign of violence against United States embassies and the history of the Ulysses Jihad obliterated any true past that may have existed previously.

Having learnt from their forebears, the Action Time come to us with their past lovingly created and recorded, whether much truth lies within their stories has been rendered unimportant as a desire for excitement replaces the need for a less interesting reality. They present themselves as criminal masterminds on the run from the FBI, pulp fiction authors and part-time pornographers, students of Phil Spector and former go-go dancers who have come together to reclaim the art form of rock n‘ roll from the capitalist graveyard of pop radio.

Pitching themselves at the point where the Make Up meet Comet Gain, the Action Time are a riot of Jack Duvall’s skinny white-boy soul, the pounding Motown rhythm of Miss CC Rider and the jagged guitars of EB Rockets fronted by the Gospel Yeh-Yeh swagger of singers Rock Action, SK Sparkles and Miss Spent Youth.

'Versus the World' is their manifesto, a treatise for war and peace "using violence to reach beyond gravity’s pull" ('Soul On Ice') in order to stir up modern society once more. Even when the songs sound candy-coated, they’ve been laced with strychnine, as 'Rock‘n’Roll' spurns pacifism in order to create a better place to live ("I know I shouldn’t say it but it’s gotta be said, some of you people would be better off dead"), as they take on the mantle of a terrorist cell, hiding their dissent under the cover of sharp clothes, perfect eyeliner and gleaming polemic. This may not be your truth, it may not even be theirs, but when the past has been seized and rewritten with such insight and attention to the finest details, and the music is infused with the twin forces of passion and politics, who are we to doubt them, for the Action Time are here to prove once more that music can save your soul.