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Kings Of Leon - Only By The Night |
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 They’ve never exactly been over-burdened by insight. “We’ve figured out
the formula,” asserted Nathan Followill when his band spoke to NME a
few weeks back. “The harder you work, the more successful you get.”
Only in the realm of the Kings could this count as scientific
discovery; you mean packing out the Milton Keynes Thunderdome might
demand more than a suitable supply of plectrums? Galileo, Newton,
Einstein, Followill...
If they claim they weren’t trying before, it’s only because their
prodigious talent always meant everything came easy. ‘Not trying’
yielded two rave-reviewed records full of what we used to dub
‘Southern-fried Strokes’. And trying? That spat out the monolithic
‘Because Of The Times’: its wagon-paced, chorus-free seven-minute
opener ‘Knocked Up’ an instant signifier they knew exactly what they
were doing. And if its second half couldn’t quite match the opening
force of ‘Charmer’, ‘McFearless’ and their ilk, it didn’t stop them
from quietly becoming a band apart. Without ever achieving a Top 10
single, they conquered Glastonbury on grassroots fan-power more than
fashionability. Now, with the release of their fourth album, they’re
widely expected to use all that talent to vault to genuine greatness.
So many assumptions. It’s natural to assume it’s going to sound
stadium-filling. And it does. It’s natural to assume their sonic
trajectory is now locked into a path that’s closer to Editors than
Creedence. That’s true too. It’s also naturally been assumed, partly on
the strength of the pre-release cuts, that this is to be their magnum
opus, their ‘Transformer’/‘Revolver’/‘The Bends’ bulwark against time.
Wrong. Sad as it is to relate, the Kings have once again made only half
of the album of the year. Like their last, ‘Only By The Night’ is
front-loaded with world-beaters but then gradually ebbs back to more
interchangeable moments. More than ever its strengths, when it
succeeds, later become its weaknesses. It tries a mite too hard.
The key to its lush, pop-framed sonics could be in Caleb’s talk of how
he wrote some of the record’s best cuts while under the influence of
pain medication, prescribed after a scuffle with Nathan. This is a
record that comes ringed in a sedative halo. At its best, it’s mirrored
in the woozy, underwater-love sensibility that informs the magisterial
likes of ‘Closer’, ‘Manhattan’ and ‘17’. But the flipside, a
sense-numbed dissociation from empty anthemics, is what makes ‘Only By
The Night’ sometimes seem underwrought and occasionally ploddy.
Not that the opening trilogy offers any inkling: as a declaration of
intent, ‘Closer’ may be the best thing they’ve ever done and possibly
the grandest first-shot since Interpol’s ‘Untitled’. Within seconds, a
familiar strand of two-note ‘Because Of The Times’ guitar is joined by
a sonic glitch that’d probably sound more at home in the BBC
Radiophonic Workshop than a Nashville studio, soon swaddled in a second
guitar so effects-laden it’s almost shoegaze. There’s that familiar
compressed snare-drum gut-punch, and then… Caleb gasping about Rapture,
all while the musical tide rises around him, through a sublime,
foreboding-filled Southern Gothic overture.
On to this they build a profound opening trilogy: the tank-like
“crucified USA” churn of ‘Crawl’, the extraordinary telescopic chorus
of ‘Sex On Fire’. Then ‘Use Somebody’ takes a turn for the Kelly
Clarkson. On its own, its cresting lonely-road shape makes it easily
the best ’80s power ballad of 2008. But it foreshadows the way the
Kings, who we’d always assumed knew exactly where the line was, may be
in danger of mistaking bluster for brilliance. The more countrified
‘Manhattan’ and louche teenie-loving ‘17’ succeed, but the soft-rocking
‘Revelry’ and the almost Verve-like oceanic rumble of ‘Notion’ pass
unremarkably. Criminally, ‘I Want You’ is a mid-tempo plodder three
tracks from the end – right where the stratospheric burn-up moment
should be. ‘Be Somebody’ scuds through its verses only to fall into
bluster in the chorus. As an outro, ‘Cold Desert’ would like to be
their ‘The End’ or ‘I Am The Resurrection’, the big, caterwauling
extended fuck-off cherry on their cake, but ends up anaemic. There’s a
false coda and some loose guitar wigging but no real sense of urgency.
It’s the sound of the Kings crowning themselves and forgetting to
invite everyone else to their party.
Of course ‘Only By The Night’ will still make them massive. As they
gaze upon megaplex after enormodome this autumn, though, they’ll have
to content themselves with the knowledge they’re merely one of the best
bands of our times. True immortality – that’s been postponed.
Gavin Haynes
» 1 Comment
1Comment
at Sunday, 25 January 2009 20:05
good album i like it
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Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt
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Temp:
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33°C
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Wind Chill:
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33°C
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Humidity:
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36%
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FAST 42kb Stereo (WMA No-Popup)
LOW 16kb MONO (WMA No Popup) 
