{"id":69374,"date":"2018-10-24T23:01:30","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T04:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/?p=69374"},"modified":"2018-10-25T10:24:07","modified_gmt":"2018-10-25T15:24:07","slug":"voice-of-action-voice-of-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/2018\/10\/24\/voice-of-action-voice-of-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Voice of Action: Voice of Action"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Voice of Action\u2019s Mark Henning is no stranger to the music business by now. In fact, he has been actively making music since at least 1993, when he fronted the band Zoom, and indie rock outfit with a strong math-rock sound in their songs (and also called Lawrence, Kansas its home base!). After disbanding and leaving only two albums and a single to act as the legacy for Zoom, he co-founded his second act called the National Trust with bandmate Neil Rosario in the late 90\u2019s, which eventually got signed to the prestigious Thrill Jockey Records. This band met its fate in 2005, after the duo released…two albums and a single.<\/p>\n

All of this backstory is necessary, because it gives some context to this new project by Henning, Voice of Action. Signed to Lotuspool Records, the band consists of Mark Henning on lead vocals and guitar, Jeff Panall (Songs: Ohia) on drums, and Alissa Hacker on bass. Right off the bat, the opening track \u201cUps and Downs\u201d lets the listener know what they\u2019re in for. Dirty, crunchy guitar tones, riffs aplenty, and no intention on keeping influences a secret.<\/p>\n

The nine tracks on this self-titled album all have more or less the same goal in mind: give the listener some riffs, some faux-bluesy vocals, all in roughly the same amount of time, which is to say, monotonous. The word \u201cfaux\u201d is intentional, because it\u2019s obvious that Henning was aiming for his vocals to soar with angst and prowess in the vein of Jim Morrison, yet he comes about a quarter as close, and ends up sounding more like the yell a soccer player might let out while feigning an injury (see track 7, \u201cSlip on the Wall\u201d). Henning\u2019s vocals are easily the biggest distraction from what are nine well-performed tracks for those who enjoy tight, nuts and bolts, riff heavy rock and roll. Not only the vocals, but the lyrics have a couple eyebrow-raising moments as well. Case in point is track 5, \u201cBlinded By Love\u201d: \u201cHundred dollars here, hundred dollars there, can\u2019t feed my kids, can\u2019t do my hair.\u201d Wait, hold on, Mark, are you admitting you aren\u2019t able to support your children in song form? Now that is rock and roll.<\/p>\n

It is almost astonishing that a man who has released music for the amount of time Mark Henning has, and the result is this album. On the bright side, there is much room for perfecting the Voice of Action sound going into (what Mark Henning’s trend predicts to be) their next, final album, and obligatory single.
\n
\nRecommended If You Like: Queens of the Stone Age, The White Stripes, The Black Keys, The Kinks, Spoon
\nRecommended Tracks: 1 (Ups and Downs), 3 (Sell Everybody Out)
\nDo Not Play: N\/a
\nWritten by Christian Lemesany on 10\/24\/2018 <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Voice of Action dishes out nine garage rock tracks you’ve heard before (and done better).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21309,"featured_media":69375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3235,181],"tags":[8198,3367,8212],"class_list":["post-69374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","category-music-reviews","category-rock-rotation","tag-christian-lemesany","tag-rock-rotation","tag-voice-of-action"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Voice-Of-Action.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21309"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}