What makes a good Kings Of Leon album? A bad one? When a band exists in certain circles as an opportunity for “Use Somebody” jokes and toilet humor, it’s unclear what they’d need to do musically to shift the frequency. Much of the derision Kings Of Leon face is based on the Followills and their increasing self-parody (see: hipster clothing line, drunken interviews, “Sex On Fire”), but Only By The Night went platinum in the States, which means somebody’s cool uncle is listening. What happens if we close our eyes, put aside the cartoonishness, and give KoL’s fifth album Come Around Sundown a close(r) listen?
First problem: It’s almost an hour long. Second: It can be difficult dealing with Caleb Followill’s treacly voice and one-dimensional emotionalism. Most importantly: Most of the 13 songs are a snore no matter how hard you try opening your heart and mind. Casual fans will be bummed there isn’t another “Use Somebody” to blast at their next semi-formal gathering. Hardcore fans will be hard pressed telling apart all the mid-tempo rockers. Really, the guys go for atmospheric bombast on opener “The End,” but otherwise there are far too many generic stabs at Southern soulfulness and life (“Back Down South,” “Mi Amigo,” “Pickup Truck,” etc.) and moody melodrama (too mellow, sans drama). “The End” has forward momentum — otherwise, it often feels like they’re treading water in the shadow of a saccharine sunset. From “Pyro” to the more snarled “Mary,” “The Face” (“If you give up New York, I’ll give you Tennessee, soul sister”), “The Immortal”‘s cloying faux-dub anthemicism, the lame “Beach Side,” and onward, the effectiveness of Come Around Sundown depends on how many plodding breeze-swept ballads and “edgy” adult alternative you need in your life. And/or if you ever liked Blues Traveler. (They finally do rock out a bit and kick-up dust on “No Money,” but by song nine, you’re in a diabetic coma.)
After a few (too many) listens we can say, without irony, that Come Around Sundown‘s most exciting moment’s been the debate over the “Radioactive” video. Otherwise, it’s hard connecting it to anything real.
Come Around Sundown is out 10/19 via Sony.
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Beach Side is the only song on the album (at least of the 6 songs I’ve heard so far) that are any good.
well now we just sound like pitchfork dont we
“well now we just sound like pitchfork dont we”
Why, because they’re critical of KOL? That’s part of the “critic” game, dear, for better and worse.
And FYI…this is dead on. The album is unbelievably mid/slow/almost can’t tell one song from another and I’m kind of stunned about it as I love this band’s music so much that I even forgave “Sex on Fire”. After hearing some of the new material live I had all kinds of hopes that this album would be almost a return to form but better. It’s not. Suck it up and deal with it.
That’s not Pitchfork talking, that’s fact.
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Apparently having anything negative to say, or not liking an album, means you’re Pitchfork.
Well, that and waxing lyrical about Animal Collective every 2.5 seconds.
@cody morris Yikes.
Yea, this is not a good album. Color me unsurprised.
Opinion = not fact
Therefore: opinion = you making sense.
stream the full album here http://blogs.1077theend.com/internbryce/2010/10/03/first-listen-kings-of-leon-come-around-sundown/
Disappointing, but every good band in their career puts out their “Dirty Work” of albums.
Does the album cover mean we can declare the hazy, faded, gorilla v. bear polaroid aesthetic over?
why they gotta ruin errything amirite?
that was the only thing i thought when i saw it. dead on.
i guess this means the old Kings of Leon is really gone and never coming back, right?
hipster hating on what’s popular so typical.
But this album isnt popular, and probably won’t be. Its really not good, and people won’t be able to find the “catchy” songs they loved on the last album, because they arent there.
The band is very popular. They were in the billboard top 20 for a while.
Thanks, but will this album be. No
I think underestimate the momentum a well-perceived album carries. This will probably chart on the strength of their last album alone, no matter how awful it is.
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I will never understand how anyone makes the connection with Nickelback and Kings of Leon. Literally sound NOTHING alike.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWJBiRLpYOE
Just because Nickelback covers KOL doesn’t mean they sound alike. Nickelback copied their sound on the cover, the rest of Nickelback’s songs sound nothing like any KOL song.
First, Stereogum reviewing more popular acts is a sign of fair music journalism and open-mindedness. Second, the band haven’t always been “meatheaded”, it was only on the last album that they veered towards the AOR sound. Third, if you actually listened to the new album you’d find that, as languid as it is, there’s not one moment that sounds even remotely like Nickelback or their peers. In fact one song bears more similarities to a Modest Mouse track than anything.
Wow
it’s not that bad.
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Please never compare the ability of John Lenon to that of KOL. And you can’t call the author a moron…just trying to read your comment made my head hurt.
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Huge “Beatels” fan?
You bet me to it..
You can’t compare them, no matter how big of a “Beatels” fan you are. Bring up the topic of John Lennon’s songwriting/composing abilities and no one will ever mention Caleb Followill in the conversation.
Spelling and grammar, who needs them when I have self-righteous indignation?
I love you and every one else here so much.
muisician = musician
despered = desperate
muse = you have no idea what this word means
geat = great
wich = which
hes = his
genuin = genuine
except = expect
Lenon = Lennon
But you are right about on thing, John Lennon is the master of two chord songs
on=one lol
This album isnt bad but by no means is it good. It’s just blah and like the review said, boring. The majority of people who come to this site like music and take it seriously. We are attracted to albums that are exciting and innovative and when an album just tries to pass the time we rightfully deem it a failure. Kings of Leon decided they’d rather sell a bunch of albums than actually put out a great product. Many will call that a success; I call that a failure.
Kings of Leon have come a long way since the days of youth and young man hood. To say this album is anything except progress is a joke. KoL continue to make good rock n roll that will stand the test of time
Yup you have a vagina
That’s an insult to vaginas.
comparing this to old KOL or calling this rock n roll is a joke. it’s overproduced and average. just a lot of wasted potential from who used to be my favorite band
I love stereogum, and i love reading the comments to the “articles” posted here. Good album from a good band. Ease up indiesnobs…
Song-by-Song review of the album by a jaded pigeon:
http://allthingsthataregood.org/?p=331
It’s just not very good.
This album is gonna get a lot of bad reviews from people who only give it one listen. It’s a lot like Because of the Times, it doesn’t really sink in until after a few listens, but most of the elitists are hardly even going to give it one listen.
I completely agree with you. WHen I first heard this album I was not interested, however gave it a listen the other night and found myself liking most of the songs.
I loved Because of the Times and listened to this new one 3x. Think I’m done trying here.
do agree though that a lot of albums take 6-7 listens to “sink in”. Not seeing that as the case here.
the album has a song called ‘beach side’ – the cover has a polaroid picture of a palm tree – caleb followill has been quoted saying that he digs the new album, “it’s very tropical and beachy”
did pitchfork forget to tell these guys that beach pop is passé?
what an awfully transparent attempt to be really really cool
its actually reminds me the arcade fire suburbs cover .
does anyone else notice that the article is labelled ‘King of Leon’ and not Kings of Leon?
looove this band. just preordered Come Around Sundown on amazon, and i can’t wait for the full release. this band is amazing ahh
They continue to regress and cave to someone’s (public, label) demand for would-be stadium anthems. I miss being excited to hear their new music.
Nail in the coffin.
I don’t hear the stadium-sized arena rock as much on this album. In fact, I hear it more on Because of the Times than this album. The End, Radioactive, Pyro, The Face and The Immortals have that kind of sound, but generally the entire second half of the album doesn’t have too much of that, there is an airy, open sound and clean production, but no giant choruses sent to the rafters that I hear.
would i love (love, love, dream) that kings of leon would be back to their youth and young manhood ways? yes! but all pretenses of kings of leon’s groundwork aside, i think this is actually a pretty solid album. i like it. i’m not exactly thrilled with their direction (see our generation’s aerosmith), but they could’ve done much worse…then again, they could have done much better.
you know youre drunk when you actually read all the stereogum comments and none of them piss you off whatsoever…
I’m like 4 songs in and everything is sounding alright. This isnt the type of stuff that I’m going to listen to all the time but I mean for radio type music its not bad. I never had too much hopes for this band to begin with or cared where they headed musically. Based on their older stuff they were a band that I would have paid to go see if they were head lining, but where their at now itd would just be a coincidence if I saw them live.
Their not gonna to a “return to roots” record until after they have all been in rehab 4 or 5 times and have a couple of kids and then at that point its just gonna be bad.
I cant say anyone else here wouldnt mind to be making decent music and a shit ton of money, I dont think their going to change anytime soon.
Its kind of funny now though because even when they play their old stuff in concert it still comes off kind of cheesy when they throw in all their delay/reverb guitars to make it more stadium rock sounding. Watching them try and be heard by playing alot harder was alot more entertaining then watching the fat one play one string w/ infinite sustain throughout an entire song.
um, everyone, it’s kings of leon. Who fucking cares. I mean, unless you live in the suburbs and have not lived yet.
Hahahaha yes
Hell, I’m happy with Sterogum’s take on this album, at least they arent like Spin and rate everything a 7. But I think we can all agree, this album is a big meh.
I can see the perspective here in the review and frankly do agree with most of what is said. However, I’ve listened to the album roughly 10 or so times myself but don’t find it to be terrible. In fact, if you pull Only By The Night out of the equation, which to me personally is really the album not like the rest in terms of theme and general undertone, then I don’t think people would be crapping on this album as much. I would certainly find it to be a more tamed down version of their early, more raw stuff. I don’t necessarily think that makes it bad, it just doesn’t make it what so many people originally liked about KOL. I enjoy Pyro and No Money. Immortals is crap, Radioactive is a transitional commercial bridge from OBTN to this. So overall, yeah it’s mediocre, but for me it’s better than the last. These guys are likely toast in the long run. I guess time will tell. Their reported attitudes and poor preceding reputations will eventually kill it for them if this average music doesn’t first.
i think the albums good, my opinion.. in all there albums for me they was one or two songs i wouldnt listen to but your all being hasty if u dont like it thats that no need to go all crazy abwt it chill ur self out and get a life (:
agreed that it obviously isn’t their best work.. after 7 or so listens i pulled out ‘aha shake heartbreak’ again instead, but i still can’t help but love them anyway.. if you prefer to listen to their older stuff why don’t you stop arguing against people who jumped on the bandwagon for ‘only by the night’ (and clearly have no idea.. such as tom riordon ^ further up who claims sex on fire to be their best.. haha!) and just listen to their better stuff..