Norwegian indie rock act The Lionheads have achieved quite a bit of successful early on as they’ve received airplay on their home country’s biggest radio stations and have played sold-out shows opening for Nico and Vinz, BIGBANG, and Madcon. And with the forthcoming release of their debut full-length effort, Human Walk the Norwegian quartet hopes to make it Stateside and build an international profile – and that shouldn’t be too difficult as the band has claimed influences such as A-ha, The Killers, Coldplay and Radiohead. 

“City of Fire” is the second single off the band’s forthcoming debut,  and it’s a song comprised of guitars fed though generous amounts of reverb, gently undulating synths, booming drums and sincere, plaintive vocals. Although I’m sure that some of my colleagues have likely compared the sound of this song to the likes of Coldplay, to my ears the song sounds as though it owes a debt to All That You Can’t Leave Behind and How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb-era U2, as the song possess a populist, arena-friendly sentiment wrapped around an incredibly catchy hook – along with an overwhelming earnestness; the sort of earnestness that’s extremely rare in an age of sneering irony. 

Every time I’ve played this track, I can picture a packed arena of kids lustily singing/yelling along with the chorus and the harmony. And personally, if the rest of the album manages to sound like this particular song, I think we’ll all be hearing a lot about The Lionheads.