Lions Lions formed in 2008 with ex-members of Vanna, Therefore I Am, and A Loss For Words. Their 2011 EP, The Path We Take, was much more pop punk oriented than their newest effort, To Carve Our Names. On this album, the four piece band from Boston, Massachusetts displays an even wider range of influences than they did before which makes them stand out from a crowd of ‘generic’ post-hardcore bands.
To Carve Our Names opens with the track “Milestones” which features guitar leads that are very reminiscent to that of We Came As Romans. “Milestones” is a great way to start the album because it displays many different sounds throughout its three and a half minute playtime. The next song, “The Undertow”, is much more pop punk/rock sounding, but you can still hear the post-hardcore influences. Despite the aforementioned tracks being very solid, neither of them are considered to be a favourite of mine.
My personal favourites are “White Flag”, “Grounded”, and “Letting Go”. “White Flag” opens with a fast drum roll which leads into a nice guitar lead. Similar to the opening track, “White Flag” is one of the more diversifying tracks on the album because of all of the influences displayed on it. The eight track, “Grounded”, has a very catchy chorus. I find myself singing along “We won’t leave empty handed. Keep your chin up and your feet grounded. We are unraveling the truth” every time I hear it. The second last track, “Letting Go”, is definitely my favourite on the album. Everything about this song is awesome and the chorus is extremely catchy.
I can split this album into three different sections. It starts off impressively, but starts to lose some of its punch on tracks five, six, and seven. However, To Carve Our Names is put back on the right track by “Grounded”. The remainder of the album is very good and it comes to a close with the well done acoustic track, “Our Colors”.
To Carve Our Names is an album that contains several incredible tracks, but I feel like there are a few that really ruined the flow of the entire album. That fact caused me to slightly lower my rating.
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