JUST OUT / MUSIC
Kings of Leon: “Only by the Night”
Growing pains evident in band’s latest effort.
Monday, September 22, 2008
ROCK
“Only by the Night”
Kings of Leon. RCA. 11 tracks.
There was a time, not long ago, when Kings of Leon made music redolent of garage rock and Southern grit, all snarl, wriggle and yowl.
Robb Cohen/Special
Nashville-based Kings of Leon consists of brothers Caleb (guitar and vocals, in the middle), Nathan (drums) and Jared Followill (bass, at right), plus cousin Matthew (on guitar, left).
• Kings of Leon videos
But while “Only by the Night,” the band’s fourth album, gestures vaguely in that direction, its sights are set on far grander vistas.
“I see a storm bubbling up from the sea,” Caleb Followhill sings in the opening track, his voice awash in reverb. “And it’s coming closer,” he adds ominously.
Followhill, his two brothers and their first cousin — Kings of Leon are nothing if not a fraternity — have been nudging their songs toward arena dimensions for a little while, with occasional success. But this album flaunts those intentions, with echoing guitars, thunderous drums and lyrics that grasp at significance. “Crawl,” another song with dire undertones, features Followhill’s lament for “the crucified USA,” followed by a prediction: “As the hypocrisy unfolds/Ah, hell is surely on its way.”
This isn’t natural territory for Kings of Leon, and it often shows. At times the band seems content to channel the monumental sweep of U2. It probably wasn’t necessary to employ tubular bells on a tune that begins, “Oh, she’s only 17.” (Nor was it necessary to make such a tune, even when Winger first did it 20 years ago.) Bigness can suit the needs and ambitions of a rock band, but it can also make self-absorption seem all the more repellent.
The rub is that Followhill still sounds a lot less convincing as a yearner than as a cad: “Be Somebody” feels halfhearted, while “Use Somebody” rings true. He keens the chorus of the lead single, “Sex on Fire,” with an emphasis that brooks any argument. Whether by apocalypse or by appointment, he’s going to get his conflagration.
— Nate Chinen, New York Times
