Doleful
Lions - Song Cyclops Volume 1
 Artist:
Doleful Lions
Title: Song Cyclops Volume One
Catalog#:Parasol-CD-060
Price: $12.00  |
Tracks
on this CD: |
| Charles
Starkweather Vs. Sasquatch |
|
We
Three Kings Of Orient Are |
| My
Summer With Ghosts |
Contact
Beyond The Mirror Room |
| Gimghoul
Numerologist |
A
Walk In the Sun |
| Spacecraft
Marooned In the Gorillaworld |
Deep
Inside The Genie's Lamp |
| The
Red Top Loung Flesheaters |
Chinese
Rockets |
| Demon
Sounds |
Baptized
In Bees |
| Hercules
In The Haunted World |
Jamie
Conjures Demons |
| Sung
Swan Song |
Breather Bulls |
| Now You're
a Witch! |
The
Mauauding Ghouls |
| Turkish
Star Wars |
Goodnight,
Graceland |
| Sparks
Fly For Magnemite |
Charles
Starkweather Versus Sasquatch |
|
It's
album number three. The accolades showered upon the second one,
The Rats Are Coming!
The Werewolves Are Here!, could mean only one thing - Doleful
Lions have weathered the shitstorm and come out smelling
like roses. "A textbook example of the sophomore anti-slump!" raved
The Big Takeover. People liked the first one (Motel Swim)
a lot, too - so the pressure to deliver was on full steam,
and deliver they did. So much in fact that by the time
Rats was finished and ready to "move" some "units",
DLs leader Jonathan Scott had already written, holy crap,
nearly 40 more songs. From this flurry of hook-smothered
and lyric-tangled activity, the Song Cyclops concept was
born. And so it was decreed, not one, but TWO new albums
in a year's time. Scott's home recordings proved to be
the framework for the bulk of the tracks, and the result
is a
sound closer to that initial burst of inspiration, more
immediate and intimate, than ever before. Those
familiar will be pleased to learn that Doleful Lions have
not abandoned the colorful
and evocative themes (and appropriately eclectic instrumentation)
introduced on Rats - the fantastical ("Jamie Conjures
Demons", "Spacecraft Marooned in the Gorillaworld"),
the ephemeral ("My Summer with Ghosts", "The
Marauding Ghouls"), and the animalistic ("Breather
Bulls", "Sung Swan Song", "Baptized in
Bees"). Recurring characters include Liberace, Edgar
Cayce, Charles Starkweather, Magnemite, and a roving horde
of flesh-eating zombies. Far from whimsical or humorous (most
of the time), these songs flirt with the deepest of allegories
- these odes to the apocryphal, the unexplained, the supernatural
are laid bare as the psychological paper tigers for our own
inner struggles for understanding. Oh, and they're hummable,
too.
Song Cyclops Vol. 1 has twenty-two
tracks and Vol. 2 will probably have just as many.
Doleful Lions are: Dave Jackson
Kurt Mueller Aynsley Pirtle Jonathan Scott Amy Smith
"Sixties revisited by modern-day
spacers. This is what The Beach Boys’ 20/20 might have
sounded like if you heard it under sedation, from down a
corridor, with the pitter-patter of light drizzle in the
background. For Doleful Lions, tape hiss isn’t a statement
or a handicap, it’s another instrument. Beneath it,
the ghosts of “Like A Rolling Stone” (“The
Red Top Lounge Flesheaters”) and The Amen Corner’s “Paradise” saunter
through a perfect Sixties garage decked out as a flying saucer.
There’s nothing here quite as colourful as “Black
Foliage”, by kindred spirits The Olivia Tremor Control,
but there’s nothing quite as erratic, either. A must
for wanderers, tender souls and those who like to look at
the world with a lazy smile through a light layer of mist." -UNCUT
"Will Chapel Hill, North
Carolina, ever run out of inspired, literate rock bands?
The Doleful Lions are yet another sparkling example of the
bountiful musical harvest spawned by that unlikely spot on
the map. On the band’s third LP-which, at over 70 minutes,
is in essence a double LP-the Lions wizardly packin nearly
two-dozen lo-fi stunners. Imagine if Guided By Voices’s
Robert Pollard and Tobin Sprout went camping and toasted
marshmallows with The Olivia Tremor Control while listening
to worn-out Bob Dylan 8-tracks in the background, and you’ll
get an appreciation for the Lion’s homebrew. The band’s
deliberate inclusion of surface noise and other home-recorded
embellishments adds even more weirdness to Song Cyclops’ supernatural
musings and surreal charisma. A totally absorbing listen." -The
Big Take Over - issue No. 47
Raves for previous Doleful Lions
albums:
"Prodigiously smart, criminally catchy indie pop, highlighted by the sweet
lullaby 'Driller Killer.'"-GEAR
Top 200-CMJ New Music Report
"The Doleful lions have seemingly
come out of nowhere to record one of the best debut albums
of the year."-Tribune Media Services
"Chapel Hill, North Carolina
has come up with another winner…Motel Swim is 38-minutes
of pure pop enjoyment…"-Amplifier
Option's "Fast 15" July/August
1998
"Classic pop instinct at
work…"-Bucketfull of Brains
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