After their last album, 2023’s America’s Newest Hitmaker, post punk/psych rock band Lord Sonny the Unifier are gearing up to release their next album, the philosophically-charged You Were Born to Save Your Life. The album is due out in February 2025, with several teaser singles and videos to introduce this new concept album to eagerly awaiting fans.
Written from the perspective of a sort of time traveler or someone who’s just bumping into the wild perspective of the society of 2024, Lord Sonny band leader Greg Jiritano and his band have approached You Were Born to Save Your Life conceptually as well as musically. With their classic sound still at the base, the musical range of the album pushes their original sound beyond post punk and Americana into the realms of psych rock, psychobilly and even goth. Whether this is intentional to go with the lyrical theme, it seems not even Jiritano is sure, but the process was that vocals come last.
All the songs were written in this very small space with a keyboard and then brought to life in the studio after enhancing the demos with synths, guitars and bass. Vocals are always added after the song was roughed out and then lyrics added at the very end of the process. I never want to write the lyrics first as I feel they might impeded the vocal melody- which in the end is the most important part of any song. If we lock in to the lyrics first the melody itself might suffer. Of course this might then limit the possibility of the lyrics, and does often create quite a challenge to find the most poignant lyrics that now must fit the “mumbo jumbo” of the demo’s vocal line.
The concept itself, however, isn’t exactly ‘”mumbo jumbo”, and Jiritano and company wanted to make a clear statement about how wild reality is now, as well as the fact that the core of human existence is the same as it ever was. With sort of a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy philosophical take, the narrator of each of these song-stories has just as much advice for modern humanity as observation.
‘You Were Born To Save Your Life’ is a musical look at the psychology and psychopathy of our earthly inhabitants, our fellow travelers, our nemesis and our inspirations. What do we say to the beast before us with a machete? What do we say to alter his ways? Do we run to the trees and jot down our observations or pick up a stone to his machete? Putting tune and rhythm, melody and lyrics to this confounding time is both a bit of stone throwing and tree jotting observation.
…like a time capsule discovered and opened 100 years from now, this is the diary of a citizen with a vantage point a bit higher than ground level…this is what he saw, what he did, these were the observations, these were some of the options. Hope and despair in equal measure. To stay and fight or to jump on the Harley and bear witness and simply chronicle.
It’s the character of Lord Sonny shaking his head at a post-COVID landscape; an outlaw out of necessity, or ‘the Savage’ from Brave New World. The album’s lead single, “Keep the Fierce” speaks to this fight or flight struggle, this track suggest both. With a musical melding of Lemmy-meets-Eagles of Death Metal-meets Joy Division, the single’s video plays on the song’s “it’s ok to chaos” theme as it centers around a chaotic demolition derby race in which the band are both pondering and egging on this fierce chaos. One way to “Keep the Fierce”, the song and video suggest, is to stay on the outskirts of society so one can stay wild. Fire and crashing busses for fun certainly achieves that.
“Keep the Fierce” is a perfect track to re-introduce Lord Sonny to its fandom after four years. It’s a bumpy, thought provoking ride, and it’ll likely only get more interesting from here.
