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Other than fleeting glan of what I had heard abo ambivalent, or at least ambivalent . The first substantial report I heard about

them live and reported back that they melted his face off. Another friend in the Nas

the grand narrative being constructed about them, home to the Kings) thought they

them or not, but that speaks of, at the very least, a severe distaste of the music. My kind of malice he once saved for boy bands

I heard the music sounded sonically spa

rage grunge (not compatible with sonically

looked liked The Strokes, they toured with U

of Rolling Stone, none of which are textbook

like rock and roll’s answer to Gossip Girl: T ironic fetishes are becoming clichéd.

Last autumn however Kings of Leon r

I knew who loved them loved them more, the people who had hated them. It seemed behind the legs, sheepish admissions that

nces in headlines, most out Kings of Leon was it caused me to be the Kings came via a friend who saw

shville music biz (which is, at least in

y were pricks. I don’t know if he’d met

y brother reserved for them the same

acious. I heard the music sounded ga-

Kings of Leon

Only by the Night

By Chris Copeland

spacious if you’re keeping tabs). They

U2, they quickly earned the plaudits (gushings?)

k methods for building street cred. They seemed

The only way to like them was ironically, and

released Only By the Night. The people

, but the tell-tale reaction came from like a collective tucking of the tails the new Kings record was really

good. My Nashville friend highly complimented a song by “this new band” his friend asked him to listen to; thus tricked into submission, he discovered that even pricks can make great music. Then, my brother, with no trace of irony, gave me the new record for Christmas; at the dirty

“Yes, th b accom

riff of “Crawl,” I was sold.

I come to Kings of Leon with no prior knowledge.

For all I know the brothers (and

cousin) Followill have completely sold out some “original sound” or vibe or image that came along with the other records. While I intend to find out if this is so, I don’t really care if they did nor not. Nor does it bother me in the least that the sound they embody now has been completely lifted from other influences (most notably U2).

The riff from “Crawl” is pure Achtung Baby-era Edge, just as he was discovering his fuzz petals. Likewise, the intro to “Use Somebody,” with the ringing guitars and choir-like vocals might have been scrapped from the floors of a Dublin studio after the Atomic Bomb sessions. The Edge, circa 1987, used effects to render the simplicity of three notes sonically spacious; Matthew Followill circa 2008 does the same on “Manhattan.” Yet the Kings differPage 4 of 9

he Kings have stolen, but the theft has been mplished with grace” “Manhattan” as well as “Be Somebody” are more busy than Adam Clayton ever cared to get, they are simple, lively, and they carry both tunes.

Kings of Leon also manage to

sound like The Strokes albeit less broody. The tandem guitar parts are less than intricate and meld together in a way that masks a lack of shredding talent, but didn’t The Strokes remind us that shredding talent is not the heart of rock and roll (as if we couldn’t have learned that lesson much earlier from C.C.

ence of The Strokes comes across most forcefully in image: The Kings write short, simple, rock songs. They wear old t-shirts and fail to shave.

entiate themselves from U2 in one manner: the chorus bass riffs on

DeVille)? Perhaps the influ-

They appear nonplussed in live performances.

If

The

Strokes

saved rock and roll in 2001, then Kings of Leon are the beatific vision of that salvation.

There is also the

matter of The Rolling Stones and James Brown.

Keith Richards could

play two simple chords with the hubris to believe (and be correct in doing so) that those two chords carried the song; that sentiment is palpable underneath the fuzz of “Crawl” and sneaks into “Sex on Fire,” the first single. Caleb Page 5 of 9

Followill has the chops to scream

the theft has been accomplished

like the godfather of soul on “Man-

with such grace, such force that

hattan” and “Notion,” and unlike

we stand and applaud and believe

Dave Matthews or Chris Mar-

the purloined object belonged to

tin (who wears his falsetto like a

them all along. Kings of Leon are

mask) one doesn’t feel that Caleb

the most transparently derivative

is toying with the limits of his

band that somehow sound only

range; he simply sounds like he

like themselves.

has soul. And speaking of Chris

Not that the Kings lack any

Martin, several cuts from Only by

originality. Caleb’s voice has such

the Night feel like Coldplay when

a distinct texture it becomes a

“They seemed like rock and roll’s answer to Gossip Girl”

sleight of hand, something we pay attention to while so many other musical influences are digested and reproduced right under our noses.

they were trying hard not to be

For every sound like U2, there is a

Radiohead and ended up sounding

sound that is nothing like U2, from

like U2 instead, which brings the

the industrial eeriness of “Closer”

listener back to square one.

to the synth riff near the end of “I

Yes, the Kings have stolen, but

Want You” that sounds like somePage 6 of 9

thing from the Brooklyn experimental music scene. The Kings deftly employ that synth for a mere 8 bars: just enough to shift the listener slightly but not enough to define the song. For every Richards-esque riff there is a guitar sound like the bridge of “Be Somebody” that eschews all sense of the blues.

The most original aspect of Only by the Night however is the lyrics,

which

teeter on the edge of melodrama before gaining an earnest and sometimes penetrating equilibrium. A song that begins, “I like to dance all night” forebodes either the newest teen-pop phenom or Lionel Richie. Yet in “Manhattan,” Caleb blends romantic images of sipping wine and kissing stars with the dour naturalism of hunting and skinning hides. The song probes the conflicting aspects of the American Dream, musing on freewheeling city nightlife and the cost of that freedom—“Every drop that spills on every plot of ground, it’s all for you for what you found.”

“Closer,” sung from a vampire’s perspective avoids ba-

nality by relegating the vampiric aspects of the narrator’s experience to casual references--”2000 years of chasing’s taking its toll”--while emphasizing more human aspects Page 7 of 9

like the lack of mercy often shown

points, these poetic elements cer-

in fulfilling desire. “17” begins

tainly mitigate it, and the under-

with a clichéd musing about a

lying music propping up this lyri-

too-young girl but veers into genu-

cal dexterity relieves the listener

ine sympathy rather than a Kip

of any need for ironic adoration.

Winger-ish desire to deflower.

While “Cold Desert” offers a high

of Leon have one fan-

school freshman an easy symbol

tastic album, and I suspect

to decode, the emotionally locked

that the back catalog is pretty

down male is rendered in an origi-

strong as well. Perhaps the thing

nal way: “I never cried when I was

they stole from U2 that has con-

feeling down; I’ve always been

tributed most to their success is

scared of the sound.”

the wherewithal to stick with the

The ultimate skill in Caleb’s

same producer (Angelo Petraglia)

lyrics however is that he endows

who, much like Daniel Lanois

them with a poet’s flourishes,

did for U2, helps them mature

weaving

alliteration,

rather than rest on old success-

rhyme and metaphor like a writ-

es. Let’s just hope that their evo-

er; not a singer or a rocker or an

lution doesn’t involve a two-album

angsty teen who writes poems in

detour from this method.

imagery,

Ultimately,

Kings

a beat up journal, but a writer. If the content becomes sophomoric at Page 8 of 9

Page 9 of 9