I think this album is a bit underrated since everybody is always so wild about Hounds Of Love. "Lionheart" is Kate Bush at her best.

This album is lush and sensual and in a way deliciously 70-ies with its weird cover photography and instrumentation.

A warm record to cherish and keep a secret and listen to in the darker and colder part of the year (for that specific reason the album's overall atmosphere strangely reminds me of Bjork's "Vespertine")

It doesn't suffer the somewhat hysterical overproduction of later work such as "The Dreaming", "The Sensual World" and "The Red Shoes" (although it loses one star because of "Coffee Homeground", which in its silliness should've been on "Never For Ever".)

On Lionheart the melodies and choruses are richly beautiful ("Fullhouse", "Symphony in Blue") and songs like "In Search Of Peter Pan and especially "Oh England My Lionheart" have that typical Romantic-Kate-Bush-Old-English-Roses-And-Nursery-Fairytale-Feel that is so unique (and pretty hard to describe..)

That Feel of secrets in the garden and whispers in your sleep.

Kate's second album is mellower than most of her work. Most of it is Kate's still-girlish vocals and her piano. The sole exception is the frantic guitar rocker "Don't Push Your Foot On The Heartbrake", which is inbetween two lovely songs--"Wow" and "Oh England, My Lionheart." "Heartbreak" contains a wonderful metaphor of spilling red beads to blood, and "Wow" is one of Kate's best singles.

"Symphony In Blue" is an interesting contrast between the calmer, sadder, and more tranquil blue modes and red modes, which are of love, jealousy, and sex. She sees God as tempering the beast from red to blue, and guiding her towards her symphony, for which she is needed.

"Oh England, My Lionheart" is a wonderful love song to the country of Shakespeare, Peter Pan, London Bridge, a country whose arms warmly embraces her and that she never wants to leave, even when she's ready to shuffle off that coil. For her, this is an England after the devastating effects of the Second World War, where clovers grow where air-raid shelters used to be.

"In The Warm Room" is an erotically beautiful song sensually sung from Kate's lips. "You'll fall into her like a pillow/Her thighs are soft as marshmallows/Say hello, to the soft musk of her hollows" Now that's just beautiful writing with wonderful similes.

The slightly bouncy "Coffee Homeground" with a witty chorus of arsenic in the tea, (a nod to Arsenic And Old Lace surely), and mentions of cyanide in chocolate, belladonna in coffee, depicts all the ways the lonely serial killer disposes of whoever comes to visit her. Anyone going to a house with "pictures of Crippen, lipstick-smeared" should do an about-face towards the front door.

"Hammer Horror" is her nod to the British companies that put out budgeted but effective Dracula and Frankenstein movies during the 1960's and 1970's.

From 1189 to 1199, England may have had a Coeur de Lion in King Richard I, but in 1978, they had another Coeur de Lion in Princess Katherine, Kate to her fans. Lovely album, your Highness.

I'll make no bones about it. I am definitely a Kate Bush fanatic!There is something weirdly wonderful about this women's song writing and four octave voice.There are two reasons I am reviewing "Lionheart".One it is one of my favorites from her cannon of albums. The second is because over the years it has become fashionable for music critics to slag it as being not up to par.This comes from the fact that back in 1978, it was rushed out into the marketplace shortly after the enormous success of her first album "The Kick Inside"(which took two years to produce). The Ideal that this album is sub par is ridiculous.It contains many classics from the Bush repitoire. My personal favorites are the opening tracks "Symphony In Blue" and the fairytale like "In Search of Peter Pan".In fact the whole album gives the aura of a "Brothers Grimm" tale.It's a perfect CD for a gray, rainy day.Other standouts include "Kashka From Baghdad"(a rather funny, voyeuristic story)and "Hammer Horror"(Kate's tribute to the old Hammer horror films).Lastly we can't forget the album's single "Wow" which cryptically is about the life of a stage actor.This CD is wonderful!Don't think about it...buy it right now!

Lionheart is an interesting case. Completed in relative haste after the success of Kate's debut "The Kick Inside" is has stimulated both love and loathing from those who have experienced it.

I for once think that it's darling. For one thing it's shorter (10 songs compared to TKI's 13) and benefits from a more uniformity of mood. The songs themselves also seem more focused and concentrated than those on her debut.

My personal favorites are: In Search of Peter Pan (which has a stunning chorus refrain and includes a dark version of "When You Wish Upon A Star"), Wow (a very memorable melody and chilling vocals, though knowing Kate that really isn't saying much ;p ), Coffee Homeground (a slightly insane number about serial murder through poisioning), and finally Hammer Horror (which features of of Kate's most driving choruses).

Overall I like Lionheart much better than either her debut or her two later albums The Sensual World and The Kick Inside. As I have discussed on a Kate related messageboard, it would make a great musical indeed!

The thing I have noticed the most especially from American fans of Kate Bush is that they don't get "Lionheart" as one reviewer succintly put it.

True,Kate Bush has always been the most English of all English singers.Her looks and her voice recall the windy wily moors of Northern England,the lush greenery of the English countryside,the dark eroticism of English manors,and nowhere is this more apparent than in the brilliant "Lionheart".

Hammer Horror is about a plot by an understudy to kill a play's main protagonist to steal the part from her or him for that matter.Hammer refers to the venerable Hammer Studios who produced all the Dracula and Vampire movies in Britian from the 50's to the 70's.

Coffee Homeground is another song about murder ,its 19th century atmosphere is amzingly produced and nowhere else is Kate Bush's voice more eerie.

Oh England My lionheart is a true classic in both lyrics and performance.You can actually feel the aching in Kate's voice as she vows her love for her country.In the hands of any other artist this song could have been a syrupy mishmash but with Kate Bush,it's a strong declaration of love without being aggressively patriotic.

Kashka from Baghdad is a sympathetic story of 2 gay men who even though shunned by their friends and families for being gay don't care because as the landlady can clearly see every night under the moonlight,they are deeply in love and obviously oblivious to what the world thinks of them.You can hear in Kate's voice her longing to join them.I find this to be typical of Kate's sensual persona.

And by the way ,Kate has always tackled taboo subjects long before it became fashionable to do so.How many of you know that the song "Moving" from The Kick Inside is about orgasm??