Megan King has a voice that at one minute can be dark and sultry and the next light and airy. She comes from a musical space occupied by such female music luminaries as Sarah McLachlan, Joan Osborne and a less bitter Alanis Morrissette. Yet despite those comparisons, King brings something truly original to the table on her new album, Lion Heart. She brings an honesty and urgency to these 10 King-penned songs. This is the album for after the storm, when the sun is beginning to shine through the clouds. “A Place Where We Belong” starts Lion Heart out with a Southern gospel-tinged feel and Megan’s sultry voice singing over strummed acoustic and light piano touches. The song teeters between gospel, country, folk and adult alternative. It’s a balancing act that King does well throughout this great track. 

Lyrically, King seems to be coming from a place of hurt and longing. She takes the sadness and hurt and turns it into a message of hope. “Listen” has the airiness and flow of McLachlan’s 90s heyday, Something that would’ve fit just right on Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. “Come Down,” a beautiful piano ballad about lost love, is a great example of King’s ability to bring you into her songs with her voice. While some singers can sing and tell a story, King brings you into her world and tells you where she’s coming from.

Lion Heart has many connotations: perseverance in the face of adversity; pulling yourself up by your bootstraps; reaching down inside of yourself to find the inner strength you never had when life dumps as much as you can possibly take on your shoulders. On Lion Heart, King sounds like she’s had a rough time of it, that she’s to a point where she started asking herself, “Is it worth going on?” After listening to Lion Heart, I believe Megan King has undoubtedly found an answer to that question, and it’s most certainly yes. Within these 10 songs, King has made it her mission to take the pain that life has left at her feet and turn it into something positive. To borrow a line from her excellent “It’s Easy To Run,” “It’s so easy to run when you forget what you were fighting for.” On Lion Heart, Megan King has indeed remembered what’s worth fighting for. With these 10 songs she shares her pain and hurt, longing and hope and, ultimately, redemption.

Megan King has stepped out of the darkness of self doubt and into the light of a new day, and Lion Heart is her journey into the light. (John Hubner)