Lionsheart

Lionsheart, the 1992 debut, combines thick riffs and dramatic melody around Steve Grimmett's soaring high register. The band had been started in 1990 in the New Forest, in southern England, by the twin musicians Mark and Steve Owers. With drummer Anthony Christmas and keyboardist Graham Collett added, it was they who invited Grimmett in, admiring his voice. He arrived by way of Grim Reaper and Onslaught. It was cut at Black Barn Studios with the help of Robin Black, for Music for Nations. The songs keep a properly British metal frame while carrying the temperature of bluesy hard rock, and choruses you can sing hard lift the emotion alongside the shading of the guitar. Around the release, however, the Owers twins left, and a long legal battle followed. The new line-up, with Nick Burr and Zakk Bajjon, opened for Magnum. Response at home and in the US was thin, but they found real success in Europe — and in Japan they were treated as headliners almost at once. Ignoring the grunge climate and playing guitar-driven melodic hard rock squarely may be exactly what won them that support. The Japanese edition adds “In the Night.”