Playing tough, swaggering ’70s-styled rock & roll, Vancouver’s LIONS IN THE STREET are a band who’ve learned the hard way the value of doing things your own way. Formed in 2000’s with the name YEARS, the group recorded an album but due record label conflicts never was released. The band somehow kept going, performing gigs and recording songs. LIONS IN THE STREET then silently put out an EP in 2013 but a few take notice.
Now the streaming platforms revolution has given LIONS IN THE STREET a new life an audience, allowing them to release largely-unheard music – finally finished and remixed / remastered – their debut album “Moving Along“.
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 full-length debut album “Moving Along” released today – featured here in exclusive.
Slinking in on a beautifully ramshackle riff worthy of Mick & Keith at their sticky fingered best, opener title track “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.
Seriously, “Moving Along” is the best Classic Rock album we heard in a while, authentic, plenty of swagger. You need to listen to LIONS IN THE STREET.
Slinking in on a beautifully ramshackle riff worthy of Mick & Keith at their sticky fingered best, opener title track “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.
Seriously, “Moving Along” is the best Classic Rock album we heard in a while, authentic, plenty of swagger. You need to listen to LIONS IN THE STREET.
Comprising the Brothers Kinnon (Chris on vocals and guitar; Jeff on drums), riff-master Sean Casey (guitar), and classically educated bass player California-based Enzo Figliuzzi, the band has played with everybody since the last two decades.
Lions in the Street began their career by signing and then walking away from the troubled TVT Records (NIN, Pitbull, Little Jon), getting blacklisted. After years in the wilderness — with members working as garbageman, surviving cancer and serious workplace injuries — they are back rocking with next album produced by Dave Cobb (Greta Van Fleet, Rival Sons).
Yet, despite experiencing the best and worst of old music business—from hanging out with Todd Rundgren, Bob Ezrin, to seeing an A&R guy almost fired just for going to see them play—the band kept together, releasing music piecemeal.
But now, finally, LIONS IN THE STREET are releasing their full debut album, tracks recorded several years ago, all re-masterd / re-mixed to obtain an uniform sound. And what a delicious sound it is!
Title track “Moving Along” is also the lead track in the upcoming Paramount film “Cassino In Ischia”, starring Prison Break’s Dominic Purcell.
“Moving Along” is a wonderful album. This is rock with a direct line back to the nasty blues, jump tunes, and dirty boogie that birthed the whole damn Classic Rock 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, The Faces, etc.
And like the best of their ancestors, they know how to swing hard AND soft, with killer midtempo 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 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 Seventies, 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.
Never to rest on their laurels, LIONS IN THE STREET are also putting the finishing touches on a live album to be released soon.
Meanwhile, enjoy this Classic Rock gem “Moving Along”, brought to you in exclusive by 0dayrox.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
01 – Moving Along
02 – Mine Ain’t Yours
03 – Walking Back to You
04 – Gold Pour Down
05 – Lady Blue
06 – Waiting on a Woman
07 – Already Gone
08 – Shangri La
09 – Hey Hey Arlene
10 – All for Your Love
11 – Truer Now
12 – You’re Gonna Lose
Chris Kinnon – vocals, guitar
Jeff Kinnon – drums
Sean Casey – guitar
Enzo Figliuzzi – bass
Lions in the Street – Moving Along 2024, MP3+FLAC
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