Various Artists – Take Action! Volume 6

By now I’m fairly certain that whenever I see a Take Action! compilation I’ll have the same gut feeling towards it. Now on their sixth installment in the series, Sub City Records know exactly what they’re doing with the compilation and every one seems to have the same highs and the same lows. Take Action Vol. 6 is now different.

The first thing the compilation will always get praised for is A) its cheap price (like six or seven bucks) and B) its good cause. After all, this compilation and tour is there to help raise funds and awareness for the Kristin Brooks Hope Center and the Youth America Hotline!; an organization that runs an anonymous suicide prevention hotline. So, good cause, good price, and lucky for us, good music.

Like its predecessors, Take Action! Vol.6 is a two disc compilation featuring forty three tracks (although this time they also added a DVD with twenty nine music videos as a nice added bonus too). These two discs are pretty much two compilations on their own and have a certain sound and feel to them. The first disc focuses on more hardcore and emo bands like My Chemical Romance, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Emery, The Bled, Misery Signals, In Flames, He Is Legend, Taking Back Sunday, It Dies Today and more. It starts off with the softer / emo side, like MCR and Senses Fail before gradually becoming harder and heavier into full blown hardcore like Misery Signals and Fear Before The March Of Flames. It makes for a nice transition as it flows and gradually strengthens. There are a few exceptions, like the appearances of Meg & Dia, Paramore and Drive By. Still, for the emo and hardcore fanatic, the first disc will successfully entertain you.

The second disc however is quite different from the first, and my favorite too, as it leaves the hardcore sound to the more punk oriented sound with the likes of Anti-Flag, The Casualties, No Trigger, The Falcon, Strike Anywhere, and The Briggs. There’s a few pop-punk bands like Crash Romeo, The Hush Sound and Self-Against City and an odd few emo tracks like These Arms Are Snakes, So They Say or the always boring Kaddisfly. But really, it once again flows incredibly smoothly from one track to another. The only odd choice is the abnormally old Rise Against song, Amber Changing from 2003’s Revolutions Per Minute. I guess Geffen wouldn’t let them use a new track for some reason; still, the second disc makes for a solid compilation that can easily be repeated numerous times.

Like always though, the biggest complaint is the simple fact that there’s not a lot of unreleased tracks. While yes, The Honorary Title gave a great new one, that’s only one out of five unreleased tracks on the whole album. For a big compilation with over forty bands, you want a bit more hard to find tracks. But I guess you can’t complain when it’s just six bucks.

So to summarize: great price, great cause, awesome selection of music, and three discs. It’s worth it.