From the Lions Mouth

From what I can recall I stumbled upon this album around late 2017 when "I Can't Escape Myself" was popping up in my recommendations on Youtube because I was fanboying Joy Division. Quickly I fucked with it. I fucked with it a lot. But then I heard "Winning" from their sophomore release and I quickly realized I had to settle down with a wife, and my wife was "From The Lions Mouth". I've listened to this album so much.

Now, revisiting it a few years later, I get to know why I liked it so much. First off, I'm a fan of lesser-known stuff, and while everyone in my town was idolizing Ian Curtis, I was idolizing Adrian Borland. At the time I started writing short stories and novels in high school because of Borland's lyrics, not just on this album, but on the rest of his catalog, even past his Sound days. The thing that stuck with me was his comment that he made to his father:

"If you want to understand me, read my lyrics."

And that was me, never expressing my discontent and opening up directly, but if you read some of my stuff I wrote back then, if you get past the cringe, you get a sense of where I was mentally. And if you knew of The Sound, you'd see how much I took songs from this album and conjured stories out of it.

It's similar to both Joy Division albums, but it's like Joy Division had this direct approach to writing about being alienated by others, while The Sound always toyed around with abstract lyricism that dealt with not being alienated from others, but being alienated from yourself, which you can totally see, considering Borland was a schizophrenic.

Borland's guitar is soaring, with beautiful instrumentation and solos here and there. Graham Bailey rolls with the bass perfectly, and Max on the keyboards gives The Sound something that Joy Division only found when they transitioned to New Order. Altogether, they awoke such a feeling of genuine melancholy, despair, loneliness, fear of humans, and being generally scared that I find lacking in, I'd say all other post-punk albums. Maybe Joy Division came close to replicating that feel on Closer, but In The Lions Mouth just does it better.

Objectively, it's good. Can't say much I haven't said already. Shame they were never recognized, even today when the internet can put so many artists in the spotlight. But maybe it's better like this. The Sound and In The Lions Mouth is my safe space that I don't want to share with some normies.

Subjectively, you know when there's an album that you identify with, and would gladly take a copy to the afterlife with you. Well, this is for me, one of those albums.

I'm rambling too much, go check it out, you won't regret it. Or you'll become sad once you hear it, but you still won't regret it, I guarantee it.

Perfectly cromulent post punk. Dunno if the list needs more, but I enjoy the genre

Hell yeah, The Sound! I was actually considering submitting TWO of their albums (well, one album one EP), their debut Jeopardy, and Shock Of Daylight. I think those two albums are stronger in terms of sound and songwriting but I get why some people prefer this one.

From the Lion's Mouth has a much more certain sound than The Sound's other albums where they hop around. As an example, Jeopardy has strong pop, punk, and goth influences, but it seems like they opted to go all.in on the goth sound for this album. The album starts with Winning, a song considered by many fans and even not fans to be their best (a sentiment agreed by the user that submitted it), which foreshadows the bleakness the album contains compared to their first album. He might say he's winning, but with that ominous synth and uncertainty in his voice it's not very convincing!

The second song Sense of Purpose highlights the two big strengths of the album, that give it it's strong gothy sound, starting with the first straight from the intro of the song: a disgustingly filthy baseline with a post-punk guitar arpeggio periodically playing over it. The bass is a huge part of the album, it sets the gothic tone and leads the music (on this song and many others), allowing for the guitar to add those occasional sinister riffs to sell the atmosphere. The second strength is the production, it's very claustrophobic, very tight, it almost feels like you and the band are trapped in a small room, and I think a large part of this come back to the bass as it's in the forefront of the mix and given more space than it's generally allowed.

I love Adrian Borland's lyricism. Lots of anxiety and themes social isolation, but with their debut they had some bright spots and a rebellious nature to them, here it feels a lot more like being in a pit of despair which matches the sound of the album.

After the fourth song, Skeletons, the band goes further into the goth hole they dug themselves into, they get darker and less poppy, however I think there's a drop in quality here that doesn't recover until the last three songs (and even then the only song that matches the quality of the first few is the final song) and this is the main reason I prefer other Sound albums. Some later editions of the album (including streaming) include the song Hothouse as a bonus track. Why it wasn't on the album to begin with I'll never know. Maybe they thought it was too poppy, since it does sound like it would fit with the more new wave influenced music they started making after this.

Should it be on the main list: You could make a strong case for it but I would absolutely go with their debut album Jeopardy instead. Either way The Sound deserve to be here

Top 3 songs: Sense of Purpose, Contact the Fact, Skeletons

While I do think the original list had gothic rock pretty well covered, if there were a band missing, it would be The Chameleons. But after that it would Swans late 80s and early 90s output. B-but! Then, The Sound, for sure! Love how bass driven this music is, I just wish it had a bit more to separate itself from its contemporaries and even the rest of the album at times.

Another post punk album. Throw it on the pile

Echo and the Bunnymen but without being extremely fucking annoying in places.

What an incredible LP. I already knew Winning well, it's one of those songs that shows up on any “best of new wave” list, but this entire album is on that level. Tracks like Skeletons and Fatal Flaw go just as deep, and Silent Air is quietly stunning.

What I love most here is the forward bass. Michael Bailey doesn’t just underpin the songs, he often drives them, his plectrum-bright tone giving the music that unmistakable wave signature. Pair that with Adrian Borland’s lyrics. Lines like “There’s a Devil in me trying to show his face / There’s a God in me wants to put me in my place” create an ominous atmosphere that hangs over the whole record. Few albums capture personal struggle and fractured identity this powerfully. Pretty sure this guy has "voices".

A lot of people here compare The Sound to Joy Division, but I don’t hear it. Musically they remind me more of The Cure, especially in the interplay of bass and guitar, while Borland’s voice has more in common with The Gun Club than Ian Curtis. This is melodic, very British, and lyrically some of the strongest work of the post-punk era.

From the Lions Mouth is heavily underappreciated, but a class album.

Really cool post-punk. It's got just the right amount of 80s sound that it feels appropriately from the era without sounding like pastiche. I love the cover too.

Passable post-punk, from one of the (slightly) forgotten bands of the era. Sounds a lot like early U2, with hints of Joy Division and a very English vocal inflection. Good, but not great, and unlikely to make any future edition of the book purely because post-punk (and England in general) is already well represented (and perhaps overly so).

New Wave-adjacent. Gothy, but not in a fun way. It's like halfway between Joy Division and The Cure, and not as good as either

Really enjoyed this, top 80s post punk, should be on the original list.