Matt Drenik and company (aka LIONS) have a new EP that they’re pimping across the UK as they play a week’s worth of dates with Monster Magnet and Karma to Burn. Because the EP isn’t available in the U.S. yet, they’re making it available to download for free, but only for today (November 30). So quit wasting time reading this and hop on over to the band’s ReverbNation site. The first 6 songs in the player have a blue arrow that you can click to download the tracks. Highly, highly recommended if you’re a fan of Local H, Monster Magnet, Soundgarden, Rage Against the Machine, and The Toadies.

You may recognize LIONS from their track “Metal Heavy Lady” which is featured on Guitar Hero 3.

MP3: Come Around

Check out the way my Thursday night is shaping up: brand new episodes of The Office (8pm), Survivor (9pm) and LOST (10pm) to start off and then a quick 15-minute car ride down to the Ravari Room just in time to catch headliners LIONS take the stage. Does it get any better? (Sorry Devil Moto, I suspect that you’ll be melting faces just as Hurley drops a classic one-liner).

Maybe you’ve heard my woe-is-me-I-missed-SXSW tale, maybe not. One of the biggest regrets I had about missing the festival was missing out on the multiple opportunities I would have had to see LIONS, hometown favorites in Austin.

I’ve said this to people before and have done LIONS a total disservice but I think of their sound as the type Kid Rock would have if he grew up on Sabbath and Blue Cheer (ie early stoner rock) rather than Skynryd (it’s the vocals … Matt D doesn’t do the whole rap-rock thing but there is something in his voice that reminds me of Rock’s when Rock is waving his metal freak flag). Rick Allen of The Other Paper said they sound like Soundgarden pre-Ben Sheppard era.

Cruise_Elroy from the DW message board says the band’s live performance blows away the record stuff which I think is pretty mindblowing itself (check out No Generation, one of those “wish I would have heard this in 2007 so I could have put it on my Best of list” CDs, for recorded evidence). And Cruise also made a Columbus connection to LIONS – lead singer Matt Drenik’s brother Jason is a founding member of Columbus’s Hairy Patt Band.

In the past year LIONS have toured with the Toadies and Blue Cheer and following this short stint of headlining dates will do a few weeks with Local H (damn, Cleveland is the closest show).

So … yeah … go see LIONS.

Got an email from Tilly & The Wall this evening confirming their participation at SXSW though exact details haven’t been revealed yet.

And, Austin stoner-rockers Lions, whose song “Metal Heavy Lady” is featured on Guitar Hero 3, are playing the High Times party and will undoubtedly play a million shows over the course of 4 days.

Lions – “Metal Heavy Lady” (no, that’s NOT Triumph’s Mike Levine on bass!)

Click here to view the embedded video.