| By: Dennis Cook Anyone who's ever worn out a copy of the Stones' It's Only Rock & Roll or The Black Crowes' Shake Your Moneymaker is going to find LOTS to love on Lions In The Street's self-titled full-length debut. Slinking in on a beautifully ramshackle
riff worthy of Mick & Keith at their sticky fingered best, opener
"Moving Along" is fire-eyed, menacing, and dead sexy. You just know
they're no good for you before the chorus but linger to have coffee
with them the next morning because they're that irresistible.
This is rock with a direct line back to the nasty blues, jump tunes,
and country boogie that birthed the whole damn genre. Untamed, direct,
and bristling with hairy masculinity, Lions In The Street play rock
like the cause it is…that is when you do it right. "All you gotta do is
tow the line/ All you gotta do is not be wrong," they caution just
seconds before exploding in a fab display of ill behaved jamming
culminating in the pronouncement, "You'll never get me to play this
game anymore!" Playing nice is for cubicle workers, and Vancouver's
Lions happily strap on the mantle handed down by Little Richard, the
Robinson Brothers, etc.
And like the best of their ancestors, they know how to swing hard AND
soft, with killer mid-tempo ballads breaking up the
pedal-to-the-floorboard enthusiasm infusing much of this debut. "Lady
Blue" is a wounded man's cry that'd slot in nicely on Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.
They fly fast, caught up in a groove that's seized them, on "Waiting
For A Woman" and "You're Gonna Lose," but then just as convincingly
offer up quality bar stool honky tonk on "All Because of You." The
re-recorded version of "Already Gone," which appeared on their
tantalizing free EP a couple years back, shows their evolution in
miniature, where now they ease off the gas for carefully restrained
pockets that make the whole song shiver. This set is so damn enjoyable,
but it also feels like only the opening salvo of a group determined to
leave a lasting impression.
The classic rock touchstone they most recall is the Faces, where wildness and smart control wrestle inside their music, a full
throated, perfectly reckless singer saturated with soul right out front
as the piano shakes, guitars sting and weave, and the beat goes on and
on. Rod, Ronnie, and the rest of those liquored up
should-have-been-kings would be dead proud to have produced this grand
slab. The songwriting is primo, gut-level gold, the execution even
better, and the production clean – the sound of a pure rock 'n' roll
beast on the prowl.
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