Doleful Lions

The sound of dreams, and of course, nightmares, continues on Doleful Lions’ fifth album, Shaded Lodge And Mausoleum. Now paired down to a doleful duo, Chicago denizen Jonathan Scott (songs, singing) and North Carolinian Dave Jackson (antique gadgets, studio wizarding) have turned out yet another lo-fi masterpiece: beautiful, ornate songs paired with unsettling subject matter. Shade Lodge And Mausoleum, like Doleful Lions’ albums before it, is home to grandiose psychedelia, winsome guitar pop, and death-metal-esque lyrical twists, haunted by tape-hiss poltergeists and sundry historical demons. Equal parts bedroom melancholy and comic book bravado. Not quite as sunshiny as previous efforts, with harmonies and occult whimsies replaced with stark folk atmospheres (think Incredible String Band, John Martyn, and Nick Drake) and songs about suicide cults, satanic rites, and suicide (think late 80s bay area black metal band Von, who released a demo called Satanic Blood, which Jonathan worships).