Bendigo outfit Four Lions will release their fifth album, Wide Awake, in July 2021 and have released a new single with video available now:
Four Lions started as a solo vehicle for Bendigo-based singer-songwriter Shann Lions in December 2014, after he emerged from an eight-year musical hiatus.
He was joined by future members, guitarist Keith MacQueen and bassist Greg Perry, for the 2015 debut album Charing Cross, released on the band’s own label Verse Chorus Verse.
The songs, all bar one written by Lions, channel his myriad musical heroes – from Wilco to Bruce Springsteen to Tom Petty – to conjure up his own intoxicating cocktail of rock, roots, and alt-country, blended with the spirit of a kid who grew up in the Australian bush.
For 2016’s follow-up Vahland, drummer/percussionist Gavan Moncrieff and keyboardist Stephen Briggs joined, completing the permanent line-up. New bassist Bradley Bradford joined in early 2019.
Four Lions cemented their position as one of central Victoria’s most prolific and hardest-working bands, extensively touring in the region and releasing a swathe of singles and EPs.
Their third album, 2017’s Golden Triangle (released several months after the four-track EP of the same name), was written and recorded in the space of a weekend.
Four Lions released their fourth album, Hard Days, on May 1, 2019, through Verse Chorus Verse. It was recorded at Preston’s Head Gap Studios by producer/engineer Finn Keane (Wilco) and mixed by Sam Kassirer (David Ramirez, Josh Ritter) in Boston, Massachusetts.
Hard Days was Melbourne Herald Sun’s Album of the Week – a first for an independent, regionally based act.
Four Lions will release their fifth album, Wide Awake, in July 2021.