There’s been a sense of inevitability about the developing sound of Kings of Leon over the past few years. After releasing two relatively raw albums with only limited mainstream appeal, they re-emerged last year with the chart-friendly bona fida hit, ‘On Call,’ featuring glossy productions and large riffs with stadium potential. Luckily, they made this transition with some of their credentials in tact. It wasn’t as interesting as they had previously been, but it was alright. ‘Fans’ was a great single, and there was something quite enjoyable about people cottoning on to their solid song-making.
Their Glastonbury set was ill-received but efficient. To a fan, they have enough ‘hits’ under their belts to warrant a storming festival show, but to the mainstream they still seem like unworthy outsiders, with ‘On Call’ being their only notable tune. But they’re back once again, with fourth opus ‘Only By The Night,’ and it looks like their keen to grab the radio playlists by the balls and make themselves a lot of money.
‘Crawl’ is bland, and is unfortunately one of the highlights on the album. The playground chant style of the verses is catchy but annoying. But at least it has some personality. Recent single ‘Sex on Fire’ makes an impact, but it’s no ‘California Waiting’ or ‘The Bucket.’ It’s a well-crafted, unoriginal indie-rock hit, that’s all.
‘Use Somebody’ is where it all starts going wrong; it’s pure top gear riffery with vocals akin to Michael Bolton. The sound is unnaturally huge, with echoey production and utterly flawless, glossy deliveries of every beat. After this, the album descends into mid-tempo hell, with slow and dull songs being followed by bland and generic songs. People are just going to be running out of lighter fluid on their stadium tour in December.
Caleb Followill’s vocals have been diluted, with the aggressive drawl beaten out of him completely. The swirling Verve-like guitars make all the songs too accessible, and thus quite meaningless. ‘Revelry’ has little going for it, a boring chorus and a severe lack of ideas. Followed by the stop-start lurch of ’17’ (a parody of the story-telling that made their early songs so remarkable), the listener is hard pressed to find anything to tap a foot too.
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The characters have gone from their songs; much in the way Stereophonics became terrible the moment they stepped out of their small world. They will sit well in the arenas now, and they may well become one of the biggest bands in the world. But it’s rare that a truly amazing band can appeal to the masses without losing some of their personality, and the fear is that the Followill boys will take the U2 path. This seems to be the intention with the likes of ‘Notion’ which must have caused much spontaneous ejaculations on arrival at the Virgin FM offices.
At least on the last album the only real criticism you could level at them was that they were trying to sound like Pixies. There’s nothing that exciting here. It’s more Springsteen than Frank Black. The chorus of ‘I Want You’ sounds like something from Calfornia Dreams; again sub-standard, heard it all before lyrics litter this song and you wonder what it was that made them original in the first place. You can’t help but miss the God-fearing/God-baiting red-neck charm. Now it’s more like the more lethargic moments of The Police, and you just want to have a lie down.
Whereas before there was something there with Kings of Leon, something personal, it’s obvious that the success has gone to their tunes. It’s soft rock, pretty generic with nothing that actually resonates with me as a listener. It seems like this album was rushed out with a strike whilst the iron’s hot approach, when really they should have thought about what they wanted to do next. Instead, they have returned too soon with a watered down version of themselves, which will probably do very well. But for those of us who were there when Kings of Leon were an exciting, lively band, you can’t help but mourn the release of this album.
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