There’s a line between “it sounds old” and “we understand why it worked so well before.” Lyons Lane seems to get it. The Michigan five-piece conjures up rockabilly, doo-wop and 1950s Americana on their debut EP You’ll Talk About It! but it doesn’t sound like a band with a museum exhibit dedicated to the Fifties.
There are vintage guitars, crooner vocals, harmonies and horns, but there’s also enough garage-rock grit and alternative-rock muscle to keep it all jumping. According to the band, their sound is “vintage without nostalgia, and modern without abandoning the past.” We’re talking about a more refined way of saying that Lyons Lane loves the old sounds but doesn’t think they have to sound just like they did before.
Founded by Mark Leo and Thomas “Tomcat” Thompson, the Michigan five-piece has already gained national attention, racked up nearly two million Spotify streams, and built a rapidly growing fan community. They’ve also sold out a legendary venue in their hometown, a place known for hosting the White Stripes, which feels like a pretty fitting milestone for a band so deeply connected to American rock history.
You’ll Talk About It! opens with “Don’t Shoot The Messenger.” It’s a guitar-driven, fast-moving, punchy opener that gets right into the band’s musical wheelhouse: lots of space for guitars and for frontman Mark Leo to deliver attitude. It reportedly remains the band’s opening track at shows, and it’s the sound you’d want to get the crowd moving before they overthink things too much. By then, though, the EP has already taken the listener to lots of other places in Lyons Lane’s vintage universe.
“Tahitian Pearls” and “Bitten” riff on the foundation the opener sets, but the band isn’t simply copying the same move. The looseness of the playing keeps them from sounding like exercises in history. The first several tracks manage to keep “vintage” feeling fresh, yet somehow the EP also keeps reminding one of how the collision of American pop music can produce something new. “A Stop at Willoughby” moves further into the band’s interest in atmosphere, but it’s also a great way of illustrating just how wide-ranging the band’s idea of “vintage” could really be.
And, of course, the ability to avoid clear lines between genres is also a good way to avoid sounding like a band merely reproducing the past.
“Emma’s Addiction” is the clearest indication of the band’s retro-pop sensibility, leaning more toward the musical style of the 1960s with crooner vocals, prominent horns, and a mood that might work as background music for a movie about traveling a long road and making some questionable decisions. That slightly theatrical quality is important: Lyons Lane is not a band merely copying the sounds of the past, but using them as tools to give its songs character. The horns and even the vocals can sound soulful and over-the-top on purpose.
The band explores that theatrical tendency even further on the closing track, “Sugar & Spices,” which carries off many of the elements of the previous five songs: songcraft, a certain old-school attitude, and the band’s natural fondness for showtime flourishes. And across the six songs, it’s not so much that Lyons Lane is unveiling some new way of crossing all these influences, but that it makes the convergence feel organic.
The biggest pitfall of old-time rock is nostalgia for its own sake. “Remember when music was better?” really isn’t a great premise for art. Lyons Lane is more interested in a better question: What can these sounds still do? Turns out: a whole lot.
The band’s approach makes the influences of You’ll Talk About It! feel like ingredients in a musical recipe rather than strict rules: rockabilly pushes the band along; doo-wop provides harmonies; the swells of old-time pop provide theatricality; and the whole thing has enough muscle to keep it modern.
The result? An EP that knows what it likes without sounding like an artifact from the past.
Old-school rock music doesn’t have to stay old. All it takes to keep it relevant is a band that understands how to keep it relevant.
You’ll Talk About It! arrives September 25 on vinyl, streaming platforms, and digital download. Give it a listen and see what Lyons Lane does with these timeless sounds.
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for various publications around the world, the former lead writer of review blogspace Atop The Treehouse and content creator for Manila Bulletin.
