Ligion

External Affairs (Maple Jam)
By Scott Hefflon

Cleveland-born, Nashville-bred Ligion is a hard band to get a hold of (their label doesn’t seem to exist, and their website is non-existent, and seeing as every shithead on the planet has a MySpace page, simply having one doesn’t, er, make you anything more than just another shithead with a MySpace page), but after hearing an EP or sampler they put out, I tracked ’em down for the mp3 CD we do to help bands promote themselves. Ligion play, well, “active rock” or “passion rock” or whatever tag they’re giving it this week. Basically, it’s all about strong songs with catchy choruses and hard-strummed guitar over driving beats. Rock, ya know? Ligion is poppy and catchy, no denying it and no need to. I remember when Def Leppard made the crossover from “Let it Go” to, like, “Photograph” (let’s overlook the fact that I vaguely remember ’81 – at all – and High’N’Dry‘s multiple greats: The title track, the aforementioned “Let it Go,” and the stone-cold classic “Bringing on The Heartbreak”), and a lot of people screamed sellout as Pyromania brought the world a end-to-end near-perfect pop rock album in ’83 the likes we wouldn’t see again until, uh, maybe ’87’s Welcome to the Jungle sleazed up the place. So, while I’m certainly not saying Ligion is Def Leppard, they’re a rock band with strong songwriting, solid guitarwork that full-on rocks, choruses to remember (and whisper along to while fucking, a sure sign of good rock), and while screamo metal and fuzz-rock purists might consider them, ya know, pop rock, like Lifehouse/Creed/Strata/Lit/whoever, there’s something strong and passionate and honest here. And this is the band’s debut, so yeah, check ’em out now so you can claim you’re been into them forever, man.
(www.myspace.com/ligion)