Mar. 10 - LITS record an acoustic version of our unreleased
song 'Mr. Coal' for CXCW. Watch it on our Video page.
Mar. 1 - New LITS T-SHIRTS now available on our MERCH page.
Feb. 19 - ON THE LAM released through Beverly Martel Records.
Download on iTunes or buy CD from the MUSIC page.
Feb. 15 - SXSW 2013 schedule is up!
We play Sat March 16 at 1am (BD Riley's).
Jan. 30 - 'All For Your Love' from our forthcoming EP is streaming
via the site-wide music player (bottom left)!
Jan. 29 - On the Lam EP Release Party anounced:
March 2nd, at the Astoria in Vancouver -- see Live section for details.
Nov. 19 - LITS confirmed for SXSW 2013! Details to follow.
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The Province
Garage CD of the Week
theprovince.com
--Tom Harrison
GARAGE CD OF THE WEEK
The false starts and setbacks endured by Lions In The Street have made a very determined band. Its On The Lam five-song EP bristles with an attitude that borders on anger but results in a clarity and conviction that run deep. There is a sense, as made evident by the sound's muscularity, that LITS has become a powerful band. This is hard blues-influenced rock that harks to the '70s but is by no means retro. Like one of the highlights, Moving Along, it simply moves ... and walls shudder.
The Gauntlet
Spun: Lions in the Street
thegauntlet.ca
--Sean Sullivan
After a long road filled with hills and potholes, Lions in the Street have released their follow-up to their 2010 self-released debut album. Their initial debut with TVT Records in 2008 was pulled under by legal battles over rights. The On the Lam EP is filled with gritty rock and roll tracks that hark back to The Rolling Stones. Because Chris Kinnon’s vocals remind me of The Black Keys’s Dan Auerbach, even though Chris has a much deeper voice, there’s a lot of resemblance to modern rock.
The album sounds like classic rock and roll although some amount of modern folk or country twang is present in the music. This influence is especially true in the track “Tighten The Reins,” which has a distinct modern country sound while also paying tribute to the blues and country that produced the rock and roll genre in the first place. While the country sound is most prevalent in “Tighten The Reins” it does pervade other songs on the EP.
Despite the country influences, On the Lam is a great modern take on classic rock — a genre that is too often moored by repeating the same old songs on the radio while new bands produce more alternative, folk and indie rock music. The heavy guitar riffs and percussion from Chris and Jeff Kinnon are a joy to listen to and frequently a nostalgic experience, at least for me.
While listening to the album, I have the urge to jump in my truck and hit the highway. The unfortunate part is that I won’t get very far — there are only five tracks on the EP. A full album from Lions in the Street can’t come soon enough.
Ruta 66
Nuevo EP de Lions In the Street
ruta66.es
Lions In The Street es una de las bandas que nos tienen robado el corazón con su música a medio camino entre el sonido más stoniano y el rock americano. Chris Kinnon, Sean Casey, Enzo Figliuzzi y Jeff Kinnon tienen nuevo trabajo: un EP titulado On The Lam del que nos ofrecen en exclusiva el tema «All For Your Love».
Twangville
SXSW 2013: The Sounds,Part 2
twangville.com
--Mayer Danzig
Lions In The Street
Canada’s Lions in the Street were the perfect end to Saturday night, the last official day of SXSW. Their guitars rang out through the club as they blasted through one rock song after another. After five days of running around Austin, it was the jolt of adrenaline that I needed to ensure a strong finish to my SXSW showcase experience.
Lions In The Street Premier "So Far Away" Video
CBC Music
The Austin Chronical
SXSW Saturday Picks and Sleepers: Lions In The Street
austinchronical.com
--Michael Toland
1am, BD Riley's Led by the brothers Kinnon, Vancouver's Lions in the Street survived a couple of wonky record deals with its blues-ridden rock & roll raging. Though the band's recent On the Lam EP finds it cranking the amps to heavier levels, its Chuck Berry swing and Keef riffing remain powerfully potent.
Lions In The Street Snarl & Roar
New York Music Daily
--Delarue
Vancouver rockers Lions in the Street have a sizzling ep just out, titled On the Lam that blends “classic rock” tunefulness and riffage with punk energy. This band has been around awhile – a major label nightmare in the mid-zeros put them on ice for awhile. But they never stopped playing: the five ferocious sides here show them none the worse for the experience. These songs are as catchy as they are ballsy....
Local Music Nation
Kristen's Top 10 Acts to See at SXSW '13
localmusicnation.net
10. Lions In The Street - I’ve been wanting to see this Vancouver band for more years than I care to admit…SXSW ’13 will mark the first time we’ve been in the same city at the same time! See them Saturday 1am at BD Riley’s (204 E 6th St).
Lions In The Street Video - 'Mr. Coal' - CXCW 2013
couchbycouchwest.com
The Stabcast
Lions In The Street - On The Lam EP album review
stabcast.com
--Nicholas Reed
Bringing straightforward blues-based rock, Lions In The Street’s newest EP, On The Lam, is five tracks of riffs, solos, and just plain ROCK....Tracks like “All For Your Love” and “Movin Along” shake, rattle, and roll with the best of them, dark and heavy and muscular....The heavy riffs and tough vocals bear out their issues and their influences, adding up to a total package of hard rock and rough roads, and Lions In The Street throw down a gauntlet at all the other rock bands out there, challenging them to be harder, be tougher, be more ROCK....
Twangville
Mayer's Playlist for February 2013, Part 1
twangville.com
--Mayer Danzig
Lions In The Street
Moving Along, Lions in the Street (from the Beverly Martel Records ep On the Lam) On their debut release, Lions in the Street were sporting a mighty fine Rolling Stones swagger. Their latest ep finds them with a harder but equally potent sound. Think anthemic rocks songs led by highly-charged guitars. Turn it up!
Hero Hill On The Lam EP Review
Quick Hitters: Lions in the Street On The Lam
herohill.com
--ACK
....More than almost any band out there, Lions in the Street write songs that speak for themselves....and any of these five cuts (or their back catalog) will win you over and melt your face. Whether by choice or by circumstance, On the Lam is better because of the time the band took to get the sound just right. Every note sounds current even though any of the songs could just as easily been written decades ago. These aren't punches, they are haymakers; the drums pound, the guitars soars, piano twinkles and bass grabs you. These joints don't just stick to your ribs, they try to punch through them.
Just press play and turn it up as loud as your ears allow. You won't be sorry.
JamBase Album Review
Lions in the Street: Lions in the Street
jambase.com
--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.
Album Review
The Big Takeover
Reviews Lions in the Street – s/t (Hand to Mouth)
bigtakeover.com
--Michael Toland
We’ve heard it a million times: rock & roll is dead. The idea of using three or four chords to bash out feel-good riffola with lyrics that commemorate sex, hard times, triumph and heartbreak is so passé it makes skiffle seem revelatory. The pundits who endlessly push this notion point to the charts for support – if the almost sublimely derivative JET is all we’ve got to prove the form’s vitality, we are indeed in deep tiger poop.
Real music fans (i.e. the ones who will actually seek out the good stuff, instead of just passively accepting what the radio and Hollywood song placement execs tell them is worth hearing) know the death of rock & roll has been highly exaggerated. It doesn’t take much scratching at the surface of the music industry to reveal a plethora of good-to-great rock & roll bands. It may be more of an underground phenomenon in an age when hip-hop, electrodancepop and über-ironic indie rock rule, but it’s there, it’s vital and it’s coming to your town, baby.
Which brings us to LIONS IN THE STREET. A gang of rock & roll true believers in whose veins run powerful strains of the ROLLING STONES, the FACES, the FLYING BURRITO BROTHERS and CHUCK BERRY, the Vancouver quartet lays down a supreme riff-rocking groove on its self-titled debut album as if it has no choice. “Already Gone,” “Shangri-La” and “Hey Hey Arlene” rip-roar with the skill of veterans and the enthusiasm of teenagers. “Lady Blue” and “How Could I Be So Blind” tear hearts from sleeves and lay them, still beating, at the feet of the nearest maiden. “Truer Now” incorporates country music without being remotely trendy or condescending about it. “You’re Gonna Lose” blends in the blues without succumbing to blues rock clichés. Recorded mostly live in a room, the tracks crackle with the kind of energy you can only get from musicians actually interacting with each other. There’s nothing self-consciously retro about Lions in the Street – this is a groove and a sound that’s completely organic, played with fire and conviction in the manner of young men who have no choice but to rock it like they walk it.
There’s innovation and there’s carrying on the tradition. The latter can be a refuge for lazy artists who find it easier to simply ape the past, but in the hands of the kind of desperate, passionate musicians like the boys in Lions in the Street, it’s damn near revolution.
Album Reviews
Lions In The Street Self-Titled
herohill.com
New Tune: Hey Hey Arlene by Lions In The Street
ickmusic.com
Under The Radar: Lions In The Street
Dr. Bristol's Prescription
The Big Takeover Reviews 'Mixtape' EP
bigtakeover.com
--Michael Toland
Once known as the Years and signed to the currently bankrupt TVT Records, LIONS IN THE STREET left behind an onerous deal and a debut LP thrust into limbo for artistic freedom and a new life as an independent rock & roll unit. The band put the excellent Cat Got Your Tongue EP out in 2006 on its own Hand to Mouth label; after a couple of years of roadwork and recording, the Vancouver quartet releases another aperitif as it readies the new version of its first album.
The Mixtape EP, available as a download from the quartet’s website, combines tunes recorded with producer DAVE COBB for the aborted TVT album with a demo and a preview of the upcoming full-length. “Shangri-La,” the latter, is a primo ass-kicker, the kind of tune the ROLLING STONES haven’t been able to knock out since Exile On Main Street. The other four songs, whether rocking (“Never Make a Fool Out of Me”), rolling (“Oh Carolina”) or romancing (“Still the Same”), are damn near as good, especially the brooding ballad “Ruthless.” Worth every megabyte, especially for fans of rock & roll in the style of the Stones and the FACES.Once known as the Years and signed to the currently bankrupt TVT Records, LIONS IN THE STREET left behind an onerous deal and a debut LP thrust into limbo for artistic freedom and a new life as an independent rock & roll unit. The band put the excellent Cat Got Your Tongue EP out in 2006 on its own Hand to Mouth label; after a couple of years of roadwork and recording, the Vancouver quartet releases another aperitif as it readies the new version of its first album.
Lions In The Street
captainsdead.com
Lions In The Street
ickmusic.com
Mayer's Playlist for February 2009 Part 1
twangville.com
Lions In The Street
Cat Got Your Tongue
exclaim.ca
Vancouver is known for its sticky icky, and this pack of retro rockers both look and sound as if they were raised eating the stuff for breakfast. But let’s not confuse these longhairs as total stoners, because their EP titled Cat Got Your Tongue is anything but a drug-fuelled mess — they can most certainly down a bottle of JD when they need to as well. This free five-track download (including artwork to boot) reveals a band remarkably in touch with their parents’ record collection; from the cheese cutters and tight-ass denim on the CD cover to the rotation of slow groove ballads and blistering humdingers they pump out genuinely, they exude the glory of ’70s rock’n’roll. According to their blog they even have a great history: done wrong by a major label down in L.A. and pursued by production heavyweights like Bob Ezrin and Todd Rundgren — two dudes that could turn LITS into proverbial rock stars. A smattering of Exile On Main Street rings throughout frolicking boogies like “Mine Ain’t Yours,” and their ability to pen a decent ballad (check “Lady Blue” and “Feels Like A Long Time”) should be enough to make the much inferior Jet pack it in.
Guitar Player
Editor Boy's Big Eight
Lions In The Street
--Michael Molenda
It's no secret that many current bands claiming to evoke '70s rock are usually far too studied to nail the messy glee of the originators. The Lions, however, absolutely explode with a Stones/Small Faces onslaught that drips with jubilant passion, as well as very loud guitars played with giddy abandon.
Lions In The Street
austin360.com
--Michael Corcoran
"The first great band I saw at SXSW this year."
Austinist Interviews SXSW: Lions In The Street
Austinist
Listen to the Lions' Roar
The Vancouver Province Newspaper
The Big Takeover
Lions in the Street
Cat Got Your Tongue
(Lions in the Street)
--Jack Rabid
Issue No.59
This Vancouver four's bio includes several reviews comparing them to the Rolling Stones, and yes sirree, there's plenty of Exile on Main Street, Goat's Head Soup, and It's Only Rock and Roll sons-of-Chuck-Berry riffage going on. There're even similar harmonies and aching "Moonlight Mile" or "Angie" -like balladry in "Feels Like a Long Time" and "Lady Blue". But the thing is, this basement eight-track recording is the punky edge the Stones stopped rollin' after Some Girls. And there's a solid R&B base that takein a little Dave Edmunds, Eddie & The Hotrods, Ducks Deluxe, and Berry himself, especially on the saucy opener, "Already Gone." (And there's a little Faces in the blues of "You're Gonna Lose.") If you can't be new, be great at the time-tested old.
Head of the Class: Best of Vancouver - Lions in the Street
The Georgia Straight
Lions In The Street: Camaro-Rock
An Aquarium Drunkard
Ventura Highway
Gorilla vs. Bear
The Georgia Straight
Recordings Archives
Lions In The Street
Cat Got Your Tongue (Independent)
--Mike Usinger
The hipper-than-thou worms at Magnet certainly nailed Lions in the Street when they described the band as “What the Stones were, what the Dandy Warhols should’ve been”. The five-song Cat Got Your Tongue sounds like lost tracks from the sessions for Some Girls, a record that—quite arguably—stands as the Glimmer Twins’ finest moment. All street-fighting guitars and sucking-in-the-’70s vocals, the only knock on the EP is that Lions in the Street sound more like vintage Jagger and Richards than they do a band playing original material. In other words, they do the Rolling Stones better in 2006 than the Rolling Stones themselves. Still, the final track on Cat Got Your Tongue—a thundering acid-blooze explosion titled “You’re Gonna Lose”—suggests that Lions in the Street are already on their way to finding a sound that’s truly their own. When they do, these guys may well be unstoppable.
The Nerve Magazine
Lions In The Street
--Adrian Mack
These guys are recovering from one of those life-changing, major label near misses, apparently. Whatever happened out there, the songwriting has sure gotten leaner since the last time I heard 'em, when they were called the Years. And boy do they ever look like they sound. The time warp is so strong on Lions in the Street that it almost feels naughty to enjoy it so much, but if Faces/Stones is your bag, they're doing it waaaaay better than most. Good for both pub and convertible, like a British rock band trying to sound like mellow Americans in 1973. That's still considered fun in some people's homes, and certainly in mine. Grab it all for free from their website, you lucky people.
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