Friends,
Get thee, and thee, and thee over to
www.lionsinthestreet.com and order a copy of our debut full-length album (self-titled).
This record comes after four years of trouble -- it's a true blue collar record that took 'Blood, Sweat, and Years' (eat your heart out TVT).
Special thanks to Shawn Cole (producer/engineer/mixer extraordinaire: second to none) and Rob Darch (Mushroom Studios), who made impossible things possible.
Lions
Here's the first review, from
HeroHill.comhttp://www.herohill.com/2009/09/reviews-lions-in-street-self-titled.htmWithout launching into another pointless debate on the value of art,
musicians today aren’t pushed on pedestals like they once were. With
bloggers dissecting records to lukewarm levels before they even get
released and the simple fact that going to a rock show isn’t the life
changing experience it once was, it’s hard for any act to gain the
cache needed to become legendary. It’s funny, but on
Metric’s
new record when Haines wonders if you’d rather be the Beatles or the
Rolling Stones, it’s painfully obvious that the statement holds much
more weight than someone asking ten years from now if we’d rather be
Metric or Nickelback... or U2 or Coldplay or Radiohead.
It’s
easy to assume that cheap recording techniques makes it easier for
bands to put out shitty music and downloading and has made it easier to
find new bands (and easier to dismiss them), but for me what’s gone is
the freedom people got from listening to songs decades ago. Rock n roll
used to be loud and hopeful, or beautiful and sad. Irony and self-pity
weren’t the dominating themes, so music was often the only escape from
the constricts of life, love, or war. Good songs got played on the
radio, were popular and artists weren't ashamed of that.
Which I guess is why it’s so perfect that
Lions in the Street play music my parents could have loved – not now (jesus, don’t get my dad started on the state of music if
Fucked Up
can win anything), I mean twenty years ago. The Vancouver band has
escaped the chains and shackles of a terrible record contract with TVT
and long since forgotten the big studios they were pushed into and now
record in more gritty locations more suited to who they are. Their EP –
Cats Got Your Tongue (
review)
– was recorded in a basement, and channeled the sounds of The Stones
and The Allmans perfectly, plus they threw in a healthy dose of R &
B for good measure. It was the type of 5-song affair that reminded you
that rock wasn’t dead, and proved that not all rock revivalists were
simply rehashing classic sounds.
Flash forward to their new
self-titled record, and happily all I need to say is that the sound
remains the same. They boys aren’t afraid to melt your face off with
huge riffs and intricate guitar work, but never jump into the dangerous
realm of wankery. No, the band just bangs out classic rock jam after
classic rock jam. If the huge guitar, sing-along chorus and harmonica
that explode out of the gate on
Moving Along don’t wake you up,
I’m not sure anything will, but after opening on such a high, you'd
expect some sort of slip. When it comes to Lions in the Street it’s the
consistency that's most remarkable and why it's damn near impossible to
turn the record off.
I’ve heard 14 songs from the band, and not one is a throw away. The banged out piano that duels the guitar on
Gold Pour Down or supercharged, road ready anthem
Already Gone
power you through the first third of the record before you have a
chance to breath. Luckily, they hit you with the morning after balladry
of
Lady Blue, a song that could be fused into countless Cameron Crowe movies if the film maker every stumbles upon LITS.
You
can’t help but think of barbeque, muscle cars, juke box favorites and
high school nights when you sink into this record. The killer harmonies
on
Walking Back to You oozes a swagger and confidence that most
bands don’t have the chops or the balls to pull off. They launch into a
full on jam for the last half of the song and your head starts nodding
and that little white man’s overbite takes over your face. They keep
the pedal grounded on the single,
Hey Hey Arlene, another scorcher that benefits from classic rock n roll guitar work and Jerry Lee Lewis piano work.
I
could go on and on – in fact I already have – because every song on
this record takes you to a time where music mattered and musicians were
people you wanted to hang out with, not a bunch of pasty faced, sad
bastards trying to drag you down to their melancholic realm. No, even
when LITS slows it down and gets runover by love (
All Because of You),
they splice in some beautiful, subtle steel to peak your attention. I
know the boys from Vancouver had their one brush with celebrity and the
results almost ruined them, but if they keep hammering out classics,
they aren’t going to have a choice in the matter. Gigs will be packed,
drinks will be guzzled and for a few brief hours, they will make us all
feel alive again.