KINGS OF LEON | ONLY BY THE NIGHT
By the time they released their fourth album Kings Of Leon was building a consistent evolution in their career. While their debut introduced them as “The Southern Strokes,” the Tennessee boys were steadily aiming their music for the stars, not the barns.
On their third album Because Of The Times, the group proved they had major songwriting chops and were more than just a trendy U.S buzz band riding the wave of good press and tight jeans. Their audiences grew larger with each release and after a tour opening for U2, the band was hungry for prime time domination. The ravishingly potent lead single “Sex On Fire” exploded out of the gates expanding their audience to massive fandom, only to double down with the goopy chart-topping follow-up single “Use Somebody” that the world continued to gush over. It’s hard to argue there’s been a bigger traditional rock ballad since its release in 2008 that hasn’t relied on electronics and production tricks.
Watching Kings Of Leon evolve from scrappy lads with overgrown beards to slickly polished radio fare was bittersweet. From the first Coldplay-esque drum pattern of “Use Somebody” it would become impossible for the band to to re-discover their innocence ever again. The album peaked inside the top 10 of over 10 different countries even going nine times platinum in Australia and becoming the 18th best-selling album of the decade in the UK.
Opener “Closer” is built around pulsating guitar effects continuing Matthew Followhill’s obsession with steering his sound out of the dry dirty rock and into the textured world of effects. “Crawl” brings the band closer to gritty Southern rock riff-age, but is as far as the band want to go with dirt on their boots. “Manhattan” and “Relvery” clean things up into more majestic territory and would have felt right at home on their previous album. This is middle-gear coasting Kings, where they capture the essence of smoke-filled billiard rooms and sunset desert landscapes.
“17” and “Notion” are charming examples of lead singer Caleb’s unique vocal style, which is part sweet, smoky, and worn. It feels like trustworthy and reliable, like an old leather jacket. Lyrically, however Followill doesn’t offer too much for the taking as the band relies heavily on melody over story-telling. Much of Followill’s diction makes him hard to understand which can divide listeners on his style, and while light on the lyrics the honesty in his performances always remain true.
The album finally dissipates into a gorgeous slow jam with “Cold Desert”. The reverb-laden 3-note guitar line eases the listener into the distant canyons. As Followhill sings “I’m too young to feel this old” he is perhaps expressing the exhaustion of his creative output over four albums and foreshadowing an early end to their chart-topping success. The band would remain popular and continue to release albums but never hit the heights that Only By The Night brought them.
This cocktail plays off the album’s sexual desire through the cherry liquor’s sweetness and the Campari’s bitterness both in balance, the ying and yang of love vs lust. But the mezcal is he star of the show as it evokes both the characteristics of the singer’s voice and the wafting billowing essence of the music .
