The Californer - Singer/songwriter David Lindes bares his wounds & walks towards healing on album Peace with a Lion

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Album 'Peace with a Lion" debuts on the 'Americana chart at 99!

LOS ANGELES - Californer -- On his anticipated album "Peace with a Lion," Guatemalan-born singer-songwriter David Lindes documents his own healing path: a call-and-answer exchange between suffering and recovery.

The bilingual effort '"Peace with a Lion" debuts on the 'Americana' album chart at 99 on the week of March 24, 2025.

Grammy® Winner Alex Cuba describes his role in producing the album as "a huge responsibility to shine a light on David's beautiful voice and message, especially in a time like today, when so many are looking for ways to heal their spirits."

Effortlessly bilingual, Lindes' voice has notes of Cat Stevens when singing in English, and Juan Luis Guerra in Spanish. Musically, he covers generous ground on this acoustic album, which collects folk elements from across the continent. There are lush, rhythmic Caribbean sounds in songs like "Coming Home" and "Jardinero," next to affecting blues tracks like "Gold in the Ashes." The sounds of Middle America permeate many of the tunes, including the title track, "Peace with a Lion." Across all these genres, Lindes' plaintive, evocative voice is a constant; a thread tying varied styles together aided by Cuba's sophisticated cross-cultural arrangements.

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Decidedly a work of nonfiction, the album focuses on Lindes' efforts to heal three wounds: leaving his native Guatemala as a 9-year-old, being abandoned by his father as a baby, and experiencing physical and emotional abuse in childhood. The songs approach these wounds in metaphors. Lindes' father is the lion in "Peace with a Lion." Physical abuse is a fire that burns his body to ash in "Gold in the Ashes." Healing is described in the same allegorical tone. Themes like mental health, the healing power of nature, and forgiveness, all appear in songs like "Lluvia," a tropical ballad about the nourishing power of rain, "Jardinero," which describes the steady, affectionate hand of a gardener as healing, or the stunning "Florecer", sung from the point of view of a seed eager to bloom and grow.

Felix Contreras, from NPR Music, has said about Lindes' efforts on the album, "He's offering up his own healing, out to the world, for all the healing we need to do right now." Super Estrella's DJ Eduardo Soul calls Lindes' songs "Hymns for people who are suffering, who need to heal."

The album is released alongside an official music video for "I Should've Cried," a nostalgic ballad in which Lindes revisits the day he left his native Guatemala, realizing his departure was a wound. The video tells Lindes' childhood migration story told using his favorite toy as a kid, a Ninja Turtles action figure.

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Earlier this year, Lindes convened an intimate group in Desierto de Los Leones, a forest on the outskirts of Mexico City, for an evening of music and stories. He played spare, delicate arrangements of his songs, and accompanied each one with a real story from his life. The combination, a one-two punch of prose and melody, made for profound emotional connection with the audience.

1. Gold in the Ashes
2. Te Vengo a Perdonar
3. Learning to Scream
4. Peace With a Lion
5. Señal
6. Despegar
7. I Should've Cried
8. Coming Home
9. Jardinero
10. Lluvia
11. Ya Sale el Sol
12. Florecer Links

Album
https://bit.ly/41y06Vu

"I Should've Cried." Music Video
https://youtu.be/N7jT2Aas5vI