Fronted by Austin Dickinson, son of legendary Iron Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson, As Lions strike a balance between their modern contemporaries’ overly scream-heavy version of how rock “should sound” and a more classic approach. Guitarist and keyboardist Conor O’Keefe manages to display enough virtuosity to hold his head high amongst the other bands vying for attention these days, but doesn’t lose track of the bands sound at all, combining brilliantly with fellow axeman Will Homer and the rhythm section of Stefan Whiting on bass and drummer Dave Fee on anthemic tracks such as title tune Selfish Age and White Flags. The latter of those two tracks epitomises for me both the challenges and triumphs of the album. The song drives at you, challenging you, almost daring some sort of retort regarding it’s likenesses to rock music of yore. Dickinson’s vocal techniques, hereditary or not, come across as brilliantly worked, almost integral components to the overall sound. Any other voice just wouldn’t suit here. From a production stand point, as with the whole album, there are a few rough edges, such as the vocal mix not sitting perfectly with the rest of the instrumentation, the diversity between the two guitars somewhat lacking, but this is rock and rough edges should be involved in your first full length album. White Flags simply rises and rises to an epic chorus which harks to Dickinson’s paternal influences for sure, and some of the held vocal notes have that trademark family tone to them. And it’s right that it should be this way. Austin Dickinson has taken flak time and again from fans and media for, rightly or wrongly, ‘mimicking’ his father’s style of singing. Which is preposterous. The guy can sing, that’s for damn sure. If that happens to be in a similar style and genre to his father, you cannot be surprised or even offended by it. He was raised to sing in a rock group, and now he has found that very band to propel himself and his colleagues to their rightful place amongst the rock giants of our time. So if you’re going to sit there and whinge about how the son of a rockstar ended up wanting to be a rockstar, just don’t. And no, they aren’t simply famous or getting attention because of this either, as it is abundantly evident everyone is pulling their weight equally in As Lions, silencing not only Dickinson’s critics, but any of the bands as well. The album itself holds it’s own, as I mentioned before, and acts as an anthemic calling card which should rightly gain the band more attention. As Lions have already been selling out shows up and down the country, and with songs like these, they deserve to keep on rising through the ranks.