DEBBIE IS EASY

Believe it or not, my scatterbrained preferences reach into the realm of punk music. Something in the whole “I’ll reduce your eardrums to pulp” brand of angst and social awareness you get from bands like Sick Of It All and The Distillers makes me all sparkly inside. Too bad for me, though, that Easy Action is not one of those bands. It’s not like their self-titled debut (Reptilian Records) is God-awful. From the moment it starts, the album takes off at full speed with the instrumental momentum of a 500 lb. Olympic high-diver. The drums, guitars and bass roil and churn in true youth-corrupting fashion. What pulls the plug on this juggernaut’s bar mitzvah are the vocals. It’s as if someone took the catchy, rump-shaking energy of the Ramones and smothered in the chunky gravy singing of Rob Zombie’s illegitimate grandson. While the lyrics manage to entertain (with lines like “,..laid me down and gave me head/wrung me out ‘cause I was dead,..” and “,..if you didn’t mean the world to me/I’d put you in your grave,..”), the distortion addled sound of them was enough to make me lunge for the “Stop” button plenty of times. Aside from the vocal dilemma, the instrumental regiment of Easy Action switches it up enough to keep things interesting on their end. If you do get the album, maybe you can manipulate the equalizer on your stereo to push the vocals as far back as possible. It might help. Maybe. To find out more about Easy Action visit their website here.