Nate and the boys drop the bomb
Just before Christmas last year, MV found itself in London to worship at the altar of Clutch. The first support band that night was Lionize. The band have long been friends with Neil Fallon’s boys. Fellow Maryland natives, they were on Weathermaker Records, the label set up by Clutch and their drummer Jean-Paul Gaster produced their breakthrough “Jetpack Soundtrack” album.
But if there was nothing strange about the choice of Lionize to open, what Nate Bergman and the band did that night was as surprising as it was brave. They spent half an hour on stage at the Roundhouse, playing entirely new material – and what’s more the record wasn’t anywhere near ready.
Which is why, almost 10 months later, that “Nuclear Soul” is so hotly anticipated. After all, if the band had so much confidence in it even then, it really must be a cracker, right?
The answer after giving “Nuclear Soul” a spin is a short one: hell, and indeed yes.
There has always been much more going on in the world of Lionize than the “baby Clutch” epithet. Here is a band, after all who went to Jamaica to record with Steel Pulse, and appropriately the opener “Darkest Timeline” kicks off with some mighty organ work from Chris Brooks before the thumping, driving and gleeful rock n roll kicks in.
Indeed, there is a glee about everything on “…Soul” the horns on “Face Of Mars” take that one to another place, but really and truly everything here is in debt to the incredible highlight “Fire In Athena”. To call its hook catchy rather does it a disservice, given that you should be able to get vaccinated for it, and the Thin Lizzy-esque twin guitar lick is something special.
“Power Grid” is dirty funk– and the fact you have absolutely no idea what Bergman is talking about only adds to its charm and “Ain’t It A Shame” manages to counterbalance this by being a glorious, soulful ballad.
The collection runs the gamut of sound, but is bound together by two things. First a sense of fun pervades, and the keyboards of Brooks, perhaps here more than any other album in their career, propel things along. His piano on “Election Year” is superb and the line in its chorus about “don’t trust the government” feels important, particularly in these times.
Brooks is back at it with the intro to “March Of The Clones”, perhaps the most Clutch thing here, if you will. The chorus is pure Fallon, not that anyone here would be put off by the comparison, while as if to prove there is nothing that Lionize can’t do, there is a bluesy feel to “Let You Down” as Bergman shows his fine – and often overlooked – vocal range.
Eager as ever to subvert the formula wherever possible, the title track begins in gentle fashion despite the lyrics casting us in a “post-apocalyptic wasteland” while blindness to danger begins with one of the band in the studio saying: “play it faster.” They do and the track heads off looking for trouble in the fast line. As well as giving us one last brilliant chorus to remember it by.
Proving why they were so keen to play these songs last year, quite simply, this is a marvellous record. “Nuclear Soul” amounts to the work that everything Lionize have done to this point was leading to.
Rating 9/10
