The Grace of a Dragonfly is the third album from the excellent Lionheart since their surprise reunion in 2016.
Steeped in New Wave of British Heavy Metal pedigree with that initial album back in 1984 featuring NWOBHM luminaries such as Dennis Stratton, Steve Mann and Rocky Newton they then disappeared for thirty years before that 2016 getting the band back together with Stratton, Mann and Newton joined by Clive Edwards on drums – himself formerly with Wild Horses and others – and Lee Small on vocals.
That line up treated us to the superb albums – Second Nature in 2017 and The Reality of Miracles in 2020. Now is February 2024 they surpass even those fine efforts with The Grace of a Dragonfly.
This album is a tour de force of pulsating heavy melodic rock with purpose. It’s got the lot and then some. Driving heavy rockers with the chunky riffs and scorching guitar work from Stratton and Mann. It’s sensitive when it needs to be on the slower stuff.
So well written and performed by a bunch of musicians who know their craft and leave it all in the recording.
Mann’s keyboards are well placed. Newton and Edwards lock together so tightly the proverbial cigarette paper couldn’t be inserted between them.
Lee Small’s vocal work is as ever effortless and sublime. Particularly on the more emotional aspects of the songs (we’ll get to that in a minute) as are the huge hooks and melodies which abound throughout.
The running theme of the songs is based around World War II paying tribute to those who fought and fell whilst at the same time pointing out the ultimate futility of armed conflict in general.
Well crafted lyrics get the point over so well and quite emotionally with Small’s vocal delivery being both powerful and sensitive as appropriate.
For example we have Flight 19 dealing with the disappearance of the Avenger bombers over the Bermuda Triangle. This is a Woman’s War about how women worked so hard in munitions factories and the general struggle of life in wartime. The Longest Night about the London Blitz, Little Ships on the Dunkirk evacuation and a really poignant Just a Man about a farmer finding a downed ME109 pilot and the unlikely bond they formed including a post-war reunion.
Oh: and the title track has a young lad watching the ariel dogfights noting how Spitfires ”fly high with the grace of a dragonfly.”
Musically it’s marvellous. Declaration opens things up in slightly symphonic style with swelling keyboards and a bit of well paced piano. Flight 19 a chunky melodic rocker as is V for Victory. This is a Woman’s War a sweeping, sensitive ballad type approach with lyrics so emotive.
The Longest Night is (forgive the pun) a bombastic, meaty rocker with soaring guitar work. A towering song. The Eagle’s Nest (Hitler’s Bavarian hideaway) a little slower before Little Ships comes in as a punchy no messing rocker with the descriptive lyric and more superb guitar. Check it out:
Just a Man very emotional. UXB thunders away. The title track is quite sublime then Remembrance, Praying for World Peace closes out a stunning album in a self-explanatory way.
Lyrically and musically brilliant. An outstanding performance from blokes who more than know their craft and deliver up to eleven and beyond here. It much more than “one better” if you’ll indulge me a Spinal Tap analogy.
Steve Mann’s production and mixing is flawless. Oh: nice to see that the CD digipak states: “this album is 100% AI free.” All proper musicians with proper talent here. Nothing fake.
I can’t big up too much what Lionheart have given us on this album. Two months in to 2024 and it will surely feature on many “best of” lists come the end of the year. It certainly will on mine.
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