Kings of Leon try to paint themselves as modest southern boys who just want to drink beer, make simple soulful southern garage rock, and be left alone in the hills of Tennesee. While they may fancy themselves Southern Rockers, their music, frankly, has never been as good as, and I’m sure they will voluntarily admit this, a Skynard, Allman Brothers, or Creedence. That’s fine, because comparing any contemporary band to the specters of great rock bands is unfair and doesn’t get you anywhere.
What does matter for Kings of Leon, and is a worthwhile comparison, is whether their newer material is as good as their early stuff. Are they actually making progress as musicians or are their songs simply getting longer and a little more intricate?
In my opinion, the singing is good, Caleb does some crazy painful-to-hear stuff with his voice. The drummer is very good. And the bassist not bad. It’s the guitars though, man. They need to do something about the guitars. They’ve been playing the same squirrely riffs for four records now.
Here’s the video for their new single Sex On Fire
One Comment
Wow. Kind of disappointing. Anybody who listened at any length to the first record could not help but be disappointed by this song. Holy sit. After the brilliance of Trani from that record, how could they slip so far into mediocrity? On that album, and on that song in particular, it didn’t matter how rough the guitars were. The rawer the better, as a matter of fact. there was so much else going on under the surface, the rest mattered little.
But this…ah well.
Post a Comment