I feel like I’ve been here before. A young band rooted in grit-and-grunge beginnings trying to take their band way past their reach. Did no one learn from the Stills and British Sea Power? I know, I know…U2 is the biggest rock band in the world. Coldplay isn’t too far behind. And Snow Patrol’s Eyes Open sold a staggering seven million copies (seriously?!). Apparently, the current vogue is for bands to aim for the rafters and squeeze out every vocal ache and rocketing guitar orgasm they can muster. Huge and emotive rock music doesn’t bug me, though. U2 in the 80s earned their cred (some of those singles are still powerhouses), Coldplay and Snow Patrol each had pretty solid debuts, and I’ve seen plenty of other acts at huge venues that honest-to-God rocked the place. But Kings of Leon? They were pretending to be My Morning Jacket, right?
Once again, though, we’re left with a band trying to be something they’re either uncomfortable with or incapable of achieving. Even when U2 started out as a Clash wannabe with a lot of polish, you could see that they were capable of entrancing fifty thousand people any and every night. But Kings of Leon have always been preoccupied with Southern grease, coarse bluster and just plain getting laid. They’re not to be scorned for that—it is rock and roll, after all. But to go from that to bleeding hearts makes about as much sense as KISS doing a disco album. Wait…
The sonic transition, while lofty and ambitious, to be sure, is possible—they’re skilled musicians with a playbook to follow. But Kings of Leon is a band in desperate need a new lyricist. The music on Only by the Night, while nothing to write home about, succeeds in giving us a reverb-heavy dose of guitar howls, rolling riffs that descend to the dirty floor and percussion drained to the bottom layer that gently propels the melodies instead of commanding them. It’s the previously described arena flourish given a dose of swaggering shoegaze. I’ve got no problem with that. I don’t need to be challenged by this sort of “comfort food.” But whenever I pause to listen to what Caleb Followil is singing, I find myself either shrugging or wincing nearly every time.
Caleb (who fronts the band composed of, as most already know, three other Followils) has declared that he has been inspired by Neil Young and Bob Dylan. That statement should be enough to clue you in to his mindset. Not only did he choose two of the most obvious rock n’ roll influences available, but he clarifies himself by saying that he was musically sheltered growing up and that their authority didn’t strike him until recently. I guess it’s nothing short of a miracle that he managed to get anything done at all.
But I doubt there’s a cliché left behind on Caleb’s songwriting for Only by the Night. “We're gonna set this fire, we're gonna stoke it up/We're gonna sip this wine and pass the cup,” is bad enough, but “We're gonna show this town how to kiss these stars”? Pass. Then there’s the vague (intentional or simply incapable, it’s tough to say) political conspiracy floundering on “Crawl” that has Caleb muttering, “You crucified USA/As every prophecy unfolds/Oh, hell is really on its way.” The sex-hungry “Revelry” revels in head-slappers such as, “What a night for a dance/You know I'm a dancing machine/With fire in my bones/And the sweet taste of kerosene.” It’s like Bee Gees meets Buckcherry, or something equally unfortunate. Even Caleb has confessed that he’s embarrassed to howl, “You, your sex is on fire/Consumed by what's to transpire,” on, yep, “Sex on Fire.” And there’s the always classy hungry-for-jailbait move on “17.” “Oh, she's only seventeen/Whine whine whine, weep over everything.” The Winger reference is too obvious; why not just pretend to be Benny Mardones and take her into the night?
This leaves the musical arrangements to save the day, and sometimes it does. Matthew’s guitar work is clearly inspired by the fuzzy hum that the Edge played with on Achtung Baby and Jared’s muscular bass is the perfect counterpoint to the warped static. “Closer” opens things promisingly, with oddly tuned keys competing with unpredictable rhythm shifts; it might be the only time when their intentional “sound change” works quite well. “Crawl” is obviously inspired by Secret Machines, which is never bad company to be in. “Use Somebody” and “Sex on Fire” are both musically obvious, but the hooks are solid enough to warrant a pass or two. Much of what follows these four tracks plods and stumbles, rarely flashing the grandeur they seek and the rumble they’re accustomed to, until the dense distortion coda on closer, “Cold Desert,” ends things on a high note.
If they abandon their grounded roots in favor of crescendos and towering lighters, they both open themselves up to a new audience and shut out the detractors. The howlingly hollow words Caleb growls with earnest contemplation may keep me at a distance, but no hair metal band or bubblegum pop act ever needed to say something beyond utter superficiality. But since Caleb thinks he has something to say, we have no choice but to pretend not to hear. Expanding their interests into politics and portents just makes their gin-and-tonic pickup lines sound even cheesier. Tongue-in-cheek wouldn’t have worked either, but least a little humor might have helped deflate the self-aggrandizing performance.
Unexpectedly, Kings of Leon is still admired by some of their big-name peers. Even Dylan (you know, Caleb’s “muse”) has given the group a thumbs up. Maybe I’m missing something. Or maybe I just can’t get past the lyrical groaners to grasp some greater hidden purpose or boogie down to the occasionally electrifying tunes. But Kings of Leon aren’t hopeless; they seem capable of dropping a fabulous rock record on us so long as someone else helps pen the words. But only hardcore Leon fans and undiscriminating arena atmospherics aficionados need to pick this one up.
"Only by the Night" is on sale September 23, 2008 from RCA.
