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Music Reviews


Action Item - Great Mission: LIFE

Released: ..
Review by Alyson Stokes | July 2, 2014 at 11:00 AM

“We are here / we walk this earth / through soil and dirt / we’ve made our mark. When the dust begins to clear / footprints we left will still be here.”

Mind blown.

Seriously mind blown. Mind = a mixture of near indescribable excitement and intensity that lends itself to fireworks exploding to display the brightest of colors. That is what Action Item’s latest release Great Mission: Life will create. Get ready. We’re going on a trip.

In their Indiegogo campaign, which was created to fund the project and raised a whopping $35,646, the New Jersey-based band stated, “Although, it’s not a concept album, there’s a general idea behind Great Mission. The idea is that every person in this world has a purpose, a reason they’re here, a ‘Great Mission.’ And this album will explore the idea of what that means.”

Action Item’s approach is quite interesting. Great Mission: Life is the first chapter of a three-part trilogy, if you will, each four-song collection combining into a much greater entity.

The EP opens with “Footprints,” which builds up like embarking on a magical journey. (Yes, it’s a great mission. I just didn’t want to be all obvious about it.) For over a minute into the first track, the sound of whimsical bells evoke a sense of anticipation and it just feels…alive. There is purpose, meaning, and “we are here,” fully awake and in the present.

“We are here / we walk this earth / through soil and dirt / we’ve made our mark. When the dust begins to clear / footprints we left will still be here.”

The EP continues effortlessly into “We’ll Be Fine” and the theme of life rises to the surface once more. But life isn’t always perfect and Action Item makes this clear with the lyric, “We’ll always need saving / We’ll always be fucked.”

With the third track, “The Start of Something,” it’s time to get excited because something big is coming. The four-piece pop-rock band hold nothing back in letting us know, “This is the start of something bigger than ever before,” and it rings loud and true.

Last, but nowhere near a let down, “Outsiders” reinforces the fact we all walk the path of life: the Insiders, the outsiders, and those lost somewhere in between.

Infectious melodies pulse like electricity through the entire project. These four songs create one of the most exciting celebrations of life to ever grace a set of eardrums.

Great Mission: Life proves that hard work mixed with sweat, talent, and shear creativity can blend seamlessly into a brilliant travel kit for Part One of an epic journey. I don’t think I’ve looked forward to a series this much since Harry Potter.

Congratulations, Brian, Anthony, Dan & David. You did it.

Buy it, Stream it, or Skip it? Buy it. Enough said.

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