Music Review // STONY SUGARSKULL "LiONESS"

https://stonysugarskull.bandcamp.com/album/lioness //

"LiONESS" starts off fast and it starts off with a lot of energy.    Right away, I can hear the distorted rock n roll with elements of punk.   As I think of this as a psych Delta Dart, there are these guitar parts which just feel like they are driving and that makes me think of a band like Steppenwolf, which helps me to appreciate that overall classic rock quality underneath it all.   By the time we get into "That's It" I'm reminded of Talking Heads, but also I start thinking about Michelle Blades, which is nice because as much as I've been thinking about the past it's good to have something to tie this with the present.

There is a certain horns sound on "Empty"- but it's those rock n roll/punk horns- and that brings what I feel is the first side to a close.   This is released as a record and if I had to guess I would assume that "Empty" would close out the first side and the record would split an even five songs on each side.  I don't think this because of the length of the songs (because of time) but rather because of their sound.  "Turtles" comes out a bit slower and darker than anything heard previously and from here the album slows down on the whole.

"Beehive" can come out even slower than "Turtles" but then when "Bentley" comes on it does bring back a bit of that driving sound heard earlier.  When "Butterflies" starts up it's quiet but kicks in louder.   For some reason, that reminds me of Bush.   By the end of the album, we reach "Veronica", which is perhaps the slowest of all of the songs yet somehow comes through really dreamy.   This isn't just an appropriate way to end the album, but it's just such a beautiful song even standing on its own.

Each of these ten songs is just full of so much life.   It's like each one of them is their own little album, forging through with big sounds and just feeling dramatic in the best possible way.  It's not often that I hear an album these days where it feels like each song could stand on its own merits, but what I love even more about "LiONESS" is that it is also able to follow that rhythm of loud to soft where you can tell an importance was placed on the album itself so that this is seen less as a collection of songs and more as a true overall experience from start to finish.