Shy Lion

It was just about one in the morning in a club on the Southside of Pittsburgh, and Shy Lion had just played their final song of the night. But the entranced music fans desperately craved another track. There was no huddle of the band members, no wink or nod of understanding. Just the click of drumsticks and the four of them were in the thick of another beat. For another two minutes and forty seconds, the room was alive with bright, clean, pop rock. Another moment of joy before everyone headed home.

This is part of what distinguishes Shy Lion from their peers. The music and the band are uncannily accessible and approachable.

Musically, they sort 70's, 80's, and 90's influences into songs that channel Talking Heads, Jeff Buckley, and Radiohead. How they play unpredictable, non-repetitive, original songs that are either catchy and intelligible, or introspective and evocative is their signature practice.

They make the difficult work of pop rock fluency look easy.

There is a lot to pay attention to in their music, like the sudden syncopated rhythms that the whole band re-routes the song through before jumping back to the original meter. There are Vincent Bruni's weird chords that somehow blend naturally with his otherwise optimistic vocal melodies, and there is Frank Salati's inspired talent for dropping A-grade guitar licks and solos in just the right places. How these pieces fit together with Benjamin Bruni's consistently bouncy bass and Michael Salati's fluid drumming is a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. The general presence of the band is also affected by qualities of openness and transparency. It could be because the group is actually two sets of brothers. Maybe they can intuit each other's vibes, musical and otherwise, like a pack of prairie dogs. But still, something more than that must account for how audiences connect with them, and it likely has to do with the regular-guy attitude that befalls the group in the moments between their rock-making.