Ever since I heard the first few bars from 'Twice As Hard' from The Black Crowes debut album, "Shake your Money Maker", I was hooked, hooked on the Crowes unique blend of zeppelin style rock and roll mixed with blues and R'n'B.

And by the time the final few bars of 'Time will Tell' from the now classic follow up, the "Southern Harmony Musical Accompliment" faded into the distance, I knew the Crowes would always hold a special place in my music collection.

Now even though "Amorica" didn't do much for me (apart from the cover of course), and "Three Snakes and One Charm" faired only slightly better, "By Your Side" found the Crowes back to their best.

And who could forget their classic live outing with rock legend, Jimmy Page, "Live at the Greek" a set which features zeppelin covers, blues classics and a few Crowes numbers thrown in for good measure, quite simply one of the best live albums ever.

So what about their new album "Lions", well at the start of the project Chris Robinson went on record as saying that "Lions" is the album The Black Crowes had always wanted to make, a great record without having to fucking fight people at every turn.

Well make of that statement what you will, but it only takes a couple of plays to realise that "Lions" is probably the Crowes rawest and stripped down released to date. The sound is a little different too, this is partly due to the excellent production by Don Was. There is also the fact that all the songs were written on acoustic guitar in their rehearsal studios, this I feel has gone a long way to dictating the overall sound of "Lions".

"Lions" contains 13 songs with absolutely no fillers and with the type of quality on offer its hard to highlight any one or two stand out numbers, but like everyone who listens to "Lions", I have my favourites so here goes.

'Fist up is Licking' the second song of the album, a real uptempo number which is dead easy to get into with great lyrics.

'Losing my Mind', a ballad that starts off with soft acoustic guitar and then explodes with hard rhythm, just as the chorus kicks in. Its also worth noting that there are some very clever chord changes around this time making the song really stand out.

Finally 'Soul Singing', quite a simple song with a lovely gospel flavour, but as I have already said there is so much going on each track, its really down to the listener themselves.

The Black Crowes may not play the type of rock and roll that is in at the moment but when you are this good who cares, they don't and neither should you.
Recommended.

Released by Warner Brothers

Review by Andy