Home of the defunct and great missed Daggermouth, Vancouver gave birth to LIVING WITH LIONS a few years back, and now finally getting a UK release, ‘Holy Shit’ sees the band having the chance to follow up the success of ‘Make Your Mark’ and, err, make their mark on our fair shores following Hevy festival this summer.
Drawing on influences from across that wide spectrum of alternative punk, ‘Holy Shit’ isn’t generally as fast as the fastest, as catchy as the most melodic or as shouty as the shoutiest – and regardless of how deliberate this is, Living With Lions manage to occupy a snug spot in the middle ground that’ll either tick all your boxes or not quite do enough of anything to keep you coming back for more.
At first, the album comes off a little safe, and that may lead a few not to stick with it when there are so many strong releases out this year, but given a few more listens and tracks like ‘Honesty, Honestly’ and ‘Maple Drive Is Still Alive’ keep you coming back for more, and there’s barely a hint of some of the contrived attitudes that pepper the lyrics of some of their peers.
If you’re looking for an honest, confident, no bullshit album to bring in the colder months, you could do much worse than ‘Holy Shit’ now it’s finally arrived over here (blah blah mp3 download et cetera), you just might need to give it a few goes if you’ve been binging on the easycore recently.
TOM AYLOTT