Who doesn't love lions? I do. You do. We all do. Especially when one of those lions is named Zach De La Rocha.

I have liked most of ZDLA's side projects and was absolutely overjoyed upon finding out that he was at the mic again. Sure, Rage might have started the rap rock movement, but they weren't that band that pushed it over the edge (Limp Bizkit), and it's easy to just how talented that band was. Fast forward to these last couple months and we have a new release that one again showcases the talents of ZDLA.

I'm not much of a political fire-under-the-ass starter, and ZDLA certainly doesn't convince me that I should be. But, the music is moving for tons of reasons. Most importantly, you know that raw passion is at work, and that you're going to be listening to a song that does not follow any kind of explicit standard. You also know that there is going to be some serious head-banging -- alone or with others -- as this song spreads throughout the human brain. I had to listen to this song/album for no more than a minute to be convinced that I had to buy it -- there are so few bands that have that kind of power.

I haven't listened to Mars Volta enough to make any kind of judgements about this drummer's playing with respect to ZDLA. What I will say is that his playing exactly matches Zach's style -- this song sounds like it was cut from Evil Empire but shouldn't have been. That being said, there is a distinct difference in style between Brad Wilk and Jon Theodore. Wilk, in my opinion, has always been known as a heavy-handed drummer with monster backbeats and relatively patterns. Theodore, coming from Mars Volta, is quite a bit more busy but in a texturally significant way. Some of the insane 16th and 32nd note patterns I'm hearing actually make a lot of sense and add quite a bit to the typically slower rhyming style of ZDLA.

The instrumentation of this group is interesting as well. They are advertised as being drums, electronic keyboards, and vocals, with nothing else filling out the sound. At times, the melodic pieces sound distinctly guitar-like though I don't doubt that these noises can be generated by a ultra-rad keyboard. Nonetheless, the usage is interesting and I think it works well. The keys are edgy and hard rock oriented as opposed to being spacey and ambient.

Lastly, the production quality is great. Theodore's Ludwig set sounds great due primarily to the way it was recorded. It's clear that room mics were used pretty extensively in addition to the specific drum/cymbal methodology. I'm a big fan of room mics -- they add a lot of color, a bit of earthyness, and a fat middle range to drums that are otherwise stuck sonically in the lower and higher ranges of audible sound.