Lions and prussians and dinosaurs, oh my!

I went over to Cafe DeKcuf last night to check out a trio of previously unseen bands. The first, local quintet Sound of Lions have enjoyed a recent jump in their profile recently thanks to winning the XPress poll's "Best New Band" title, while Toronto's Dinosaur Bones apparently have a devoted local following and are currently on a miniature Quebec-Ontario tour (they have a show tonight in their hometown at the Horseshoe). Their tourmates for the next week or so are Detroit combo Prussia, who I had never heard of before but expect to hear a lot more about, since they were dynamite.

Sound of Lions go where brave bands fear to tread, blending some scratching and mixing with some rhythm heavy nu-R&B and trip-hop indy-ish sounds, and pull it off quite well. Here's some of the folks: drummer Marco Campagna, bassist Joel Soucy, who's appeared a few other times on this blog in other bands, singer and turntablist and occasional singer Christian Awad.


Sound of Lions at Cafe DeKcuf, February 1, 2012

And the other two, guitarist Will Assaad and singer Whitney Delion.


Sound of Lions at Cafe DeKcuf, February 1, 2012

Prussia are also a five-piece. There was something about their gangly energy that had me thinking "Are these guys from Guelph?" (The D'urbervilles/Matters were on my mind.) They put out a fair amount of volume and had a strong rhythmic presence to go along with somewhat adenoidal vocals and snarky lyrics. Here's Brenton Bober and Ryan Spencer.


Prussia at Cafe DeKcuf, February 1, 2012

And some singalong action with bassist Adam Pressley and guitarist Kasey Press (drummer Drew Spencer rounds out the combo).


Prussia at Cafe DeKcuf, February 1, 2012

Dinosaur Bones ended the night. I thought they were okay, but I wasn't as nearly excited as the rest of the audience, though I'll grant thinks started to cook a little more after the first few songs. Here are them Bones!


Dinosaur Bones at Cafe DeKcuf, February 1, 2012

Guitar action!


Dinosaur Bones at Cafe DeKcuf, February 1, 2012

A nice way to spend a soggy Wednesday.

• Show reminder: A Sight For Sewn Eyes, Bare Bones, Lifestory:Monologue, The Gillingham Fire Demonstration and Letters from the Princess play Mavericks; Little Birdie, Kim Koren and Blisster & The SaddleSores perform at the Elmdale.