Wounded Lion ' IVXLCDM'

Wounded Lion are; Brad Eberhard (guitar, vocals), Lars Finberg (drums, guitar), Raffi Kalenderian (bass, percussion, vocals), Shant Kalenderian (guitar, bass, vocals) and Jun Ohnuki (bass, drums, organ, percussion). The five piece are grounded in LA, featuring hammering rhythms, crunchy guitars, elastic bass and organs. Some may already be familiar with Finberg's work in other projects - he's the current drummer for Thee Oh Sees, original drummer for A-Frames and masterminded band Intelligence. 'IVXLCDM' follows up last years debut on In the Red, this new album attests that since their first single on S-S Records Wounded Lion have continued to hit their stride. Recorded with Chris Woodhouse these 10 songs capture Wounded Lion's playful, wrong-footed manner towards their collage-like style of songwriting further shown in videos where pieces of horror, nature, sex and fiction are woven together creating nonsensical stories and images in their own form of art-punk.

The primitive approach to 'IVXLCDM' is best shown early on in the record by "Wyld Parrots" kicking off with a rumbling bass, incoherent vocals and forthright drums. Flipping over, Side B features "I'm Sad" with off kilter guitars bending in and out of tune, clobbering rhythms and a yell-a-long chorus, "I am sad (why are you sad?), because I want to play more music and I want to sing my song" declares Finberg in a deadpan yelp. It's this innocent and unrefined approach that sums up Wounded Lion's demeanor, another example of this is stormy number "Raincheck Vibrations" dealing with childhood imagery and frustrations of being an adult. Right out of the gates guitars transmit a menacing tone allowing Finberg to get his story across "I was watching batman, batman and catwoman were alone in an alley, they were getting kinda close, their caped shoulders were touching, their faces drew nearer and nearer, they were so close, then robin came running round the corner and screwed everything up..." 'IVXLCDM' is a weighty, raw sounding album recorded in a way that sounds unlike anything else around whereby, Wounded Lion utilizes simplified parameters they set themselves to take their songwriting to a place without limits.

Video for "Raincheck Vibration"


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