Lions

Reviewed by:
David Peisner

The Black Crowes don’t just play rock’n’roll—they live it. They drink, they drug, they fight, they even marry hot, young actresses, and through it all they still find time to crank out the kind of rip-roaring noise that makes men stomp and women swoon. Lions is all that and more, a bold gut-check of a record as impressive as anything the Crowes have thrown down in nearly a decade. Though they could always shake their moneymaker when necessary, their last few efforts were kinda spotty in the songwriting department—a problem brothers Chris and Rich Robinson remedy here. A piano kicks off “Cosmic Friend” like a lost Kinks B-side before thunderous guitar riffs steamroll it into Zeppelin’s backyard; the mesmerizing guitar work on “Soul Singin’” surpasses anything Jimmy Page has done in decades. Elsewhere, Chris Robinson does his best James Brown on the funk burner “Young Man, Old Man” and puts his pipes to great use on soulful ballads (“Miracle to Me”) and ferocious rockers (“Come On”) alike. Strutting like cocky vets but snarling like they’ve got something to prove, the Crowes show why they’re kings of the rock’n’roll jungle.

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