.357 Lover
Diorama of the Golden Lion
Self-Released
10/10

.357 Lover’s debut LP, Diorama of the Golden Lion rises up from the saturated musical mire and into your hands on September 29th. Let’s just hope you’re smart enough to grab this instead of the new Hatebreed album.

Led by front man, Corn Mo, .357 Lover started its roots in Denton, Texas. His sound is often matched with Queen and Meatloaf, but the album is more than that. It is stylistically varied from the epic rock opera feel to country to Hebrew folk song (“The Hava Nagila Monster”). The lyrics are absolutely hilarious, the guitars rip and melt your face off at the same time, and the songwriting is impeccable.

The only issue is that I’m not sure people will understand its brilliance. This is an album that you should laugh with and take seriously at the same time. The lyrical snapshots of childhood and those little moments many songwriters fail to write about make this self-released piece of work even more genuine. When I interviewed Corn Mo, he noted that the album “took ten years to make…not from hard work, but from procrastination”—For good reason. This is the most thought out and creative album I’ve heard all summer, and the world will never know it.

-Kateri Lirio