Search - Sound :: From the Lions Mouth

Gone but very definitely not forgotten

Robert Moore | Chicago, IL USA | 02/08/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Even during the eighties, few of my friends who were passionate music fans seemed to know this extraordinary band. Listening to this album today, it is inconceivable that these guys weren't huge in the US. They had it all: tremendous, tremendous songs, great vocals, a tight band with a great eighties sound. I truly feel that The Sound was as good as Wire, the Blue Aeroplanes, and the Cure at their best, and better than many other excellent bands like Joy Division, Gang of Four, and Echo and the Bunnymen. Anyone doubting me needs to hear these songs. The album starts off with one of my favorite songs by the band, "Winning," which is unlike the suffering laments so popular with bands in the eighties (the chorus goes: "I was going to drown/Then I started swimming/I was going down/Then I started winning"--not exactly Morrissey). The way vocalist Adrian Borland punctuates the word "winning" indicates this isn't wishful thinking, but a resolution. This lack of wallowing in self-pity sets the Sound apart from their contemporaries. Even the weakest album by the Sound has good moments, but luckily FROM THE LION'S MOUTH is probably their finest album. Anyone wanting to sample this great band's work should probably start with this one. If this one pleases, then one should then go on to pick up the very nearly as good JEOPARDY, and then the compilation disc SHOCK OF DAYLIGHT/HEADS AND HEARTS, which collects two EPs and some bonus tracks that are as good as the full length albums. I promise, if you are a fan of the best of the post-punk bands of the eighties, this band will delight. All of these are currently available on imports. Do yourself a favor and get them before they disappear."

A forgotten post-punk masterpiece

Michael Paulsen | Rancho Santa Margarita, CA USA | 04/03/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"FROM THE LION'S MOUTH should be one of the most important -- certainly alternative -- albums of the 80's. Unfortunately, The Sound never achieved a cult status on the level of Joy Division, The Smiths or The Pixies (and other "fathers" of alternative), and were therefore confined to obscurity. Of The Sound's early 3 albums, FROM THE LION'S MOUTH is the essential one to own -- a peak sophomore achievement. Their blend of angular guitars, throbbing bass and mimimalist keyboard fills, combined with the late Adrian Borland's intense, emotive vocals created a "sound" that was quite unorthodox yet exciting and intoxicating, particularly for the year 1981. A great album to point to whenever some misguided fool tries to dismiss all 80's music as slick, commercial trash. From the stunning opener "Winning" to the closing, anti-Thatcher-era rant "New Dark Age", this album is simply incredible for its time. Also added as a hidden bonus track: the 1981 non-album single "Hothouse".It's good to see that the dedicated UK label Renascent has reissued all of The Sound's classic albums. FROM THE LION'S MOUTH and their brilliant 1985 EP and album, SHOCK OF DAYLIGHT / HEADS AND HEARTS are essential proto alt-rock albums to have in one's collection. If you're like me, you'll wish you had discovered this one sooner."

This really is a 'lost classic'...

mARKst | Edinburgh | 10/23/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The period 1980 to about 1983 was when I really discovered music as a teenager, I listened to John Peel a lot and started buying all sorts of what was then fairly obscure music. But somehow, despite discovering everything from Joy Division to Gang of Four, Wire to Nick Cave and the of course the Velvet Underground, I never quite got into the Sound. I had one session on tape off John Peel from about 1982, and Annie Nightingale used to play the Sound alongside the Comsat Angels and Echo & the Bunnymen, their direct contemporaries. So now, having finally gotten hold of the newly re-issued LP 'From the Lions Mouth', I can confirm what I was always told - this is a true Lost Classic from the heyday of Post Punk. In terms of complexity, tension and sonic power, this is way ahead of the Bunnymen and U2, and is rivaled only by Joy Division in dark urban poetic savagery tinged with an epic melancholy. Or something like that. Overall, this LP hangs together as a whole, which was a trait sorely missing from many bands of the time, who based a set around a few good tunes and three or four fillers.



Adrian Borland's vocals remind me a bit of Jeffrey Lee Pierce circa the Gun Club's second LP 'Miaimi', and the guitar playing contains more than a hint of Tom Verlaine.



Lets hope the new generation get into this because a lot of the new bands like Interpol, Bloc Party and so on are pale comparisons."