Saturday Spotlight: His Dream of Lions

With so many great up-and-coming acts in music, the Internet has made it that much easier to find your new favorite band. In an effort to shed some light on these acts, POParazzi’s new Saturday Spotlight will showcase new artists that are putting in the work to break out and make it big. Up first is the Fairfax, VA Rock/Alt band His Dream of Lions. The band is made up of members Seth Coggeshall (Vocals/Guitar), Blair Kilner (Bass), Colby Witko (Keys/Vocals), Jack Dunigan (Drums), and Nick Jones (Guitar), and they first caught my eye with their awesome cover of Lana Del Rey’s ‘National Anthem’, which you can watch below.

The rock cover has caught the eye of others, too – amassing over 100,000 views since it was posted in 2013. What separates His Dream of Lions from some other bands on Youtube is their love for music and art is apparent – their cover of a much more mainstream artist’s work has gotten them your attention, but that’s not the only reason they’re doing it. Digging deeper shows His Dream of Lion’s has original songs and a dedication to honing their craft.

In 2014, the band released their first EP – succintly titled Part One. Of the five tracks on the EP, they released a music video for the second track, ‘Elsa’.

Much like the ‘National Anthem’ cover, ‘Elsa’ has a video that shows the band has talent to spare and quite impressive production values for a band releasing their music without the backing of a multi-million dollar label. You can listen to Part One in full on Spotify below, and purchase it on iTunes or Bandcamp. (If possible – get the album on Bandcamp. You’ll get free unlimited streaming as well as the MP3s, but also the songs are available in lossless FLAC, unlike iTunes. While the compressed MP3s sound all right, the lossless tracks offer a better clarity, especially on vocals which can seem to be overpowered by the instruments on lossy versions.)

Following Part One comes Part Two, with music videos for ‘The Pace Car’ and the more laid back ‘Next Stop, Fall City’. You can watch the videos below and listen to the EP on Spotify and iTunes.

From the video for ‘The Pace Car’, it’s easy to see His Dream of Lions are in their element when performing live. Be sure to follow the band on Twitter and like them on Facebook to stay up to date with where they’ll be performing in the future.