When many people think of Maryland, an oft-quoted line from the 2005 movie Wedding Crashers, spoken by a preppy gentleman who goes by the dubious name of Flip, springs to mind: "Crab cakes and football," he declares smugly. "That's what Maryland does!" But in a criminal oversight, Flip forgot to mention the Old Line State's reputation as a hub for forward-thinking hard-rock bands: like Clutch and Jawbox, who both breathed new life into the genre in the Nineties by drawing upon the DMV's rich, diverse musical traditions, from funk and reggae to go-go and garage rock.
Lionize are one of the latest groups to follow in the state's musical lineage. Founded in 2004, the quartet are not so much a hard-rock band as they are a hyper-aggro, stoner-friendly composite of those surrounding scenes, with a sound that takes the funky with the furious. Today, the band have teamed up with Revolver to premiere their new album, Nuclear Soul, ahead of its arrival tomorrow, September 8th. The 11-track follow-up to 2014's Jetpack Soundtrack LP was co-produced by the band alongside Clutch's Jean-Paul Gaster and Jawbox's J. Robbins, and finds the band serving up takes on presidential politics and science fiction, in addition to the usual grooves. You can stream the album in its entirety above, and pre-order the record here via The End.
"Lionize is at a place in artistic exploration where we feel like we've pushed ourselves further into a cohesive sound that now defines what the band is," says vocalist/guitarist Nathan Bergman. "This album is a refined representation of what the band does live and it's documented by having played all the instruments together in the same room, printed on a two-inch tape machine and analog board. Thematically, it touches on our love of science fiction meeting science fact, and the desperation to understand the troubling times we are living in. We intended to push the groove to a groovier place, the heavy riffs to a heavier place and the soul aspect to a nice slow burn. We are as excited as we've ever been to share this album with the world, and we hope everyone loves listening to Nuclear Soul as much as we loved brining it to life."
