Kings Of Leon - What happened? continued (Come Around Sundown)

Now what can I say about this album?  Again I must stress I am a fan and I do not want to attack, merely profess my disappointment.

New Album: Come Around Sundown

First, I am not going to go through the album song by song, I’ll leave that to the NME.  But I gauged the album by marking each individual song out of ten.  There are thirteen songs on the album; therefore the final score was out of 130.  The worst song on the album was ‘Mary’ that scored a meagre 3/10, its borderline as feeble as ‘Use Somebody’ from the previous album.  The best song was ‘Back Down South’ which I gave 8/10.  Now this is perhaps generous but from the evidence of the album there are few songs that measure against this one.  I saw this song as a glimpse of the quality and sound that we know they possess.  At a similar pace to ‘Fans’ from Because of the Times, the song takes a really classically country sound that I enjoyed.  But my gratification may be bias, I did not enjoy the majority and this is the background from which ‘Back Down South’ is to be considered.  Not ‘best of a bad bunch’ but ‘best of a dreary bunch’.  Other songs like ‘Radioactive’ and ‘No Money’ are nothing more of mediocre. But other than these I scored the album 69/130, which is hardly encouraging.

The drummer, Nathan Followill mentioned during an interview on the set of the making of the Radioactive video (which is very peculiar, almost Michael Jackson ‘Heal the World’ territory) that this record is “nicer”, and that as a result their Grandmother thinks they “will go to hell slower” than before.  If such a weak and inoffensive record results in a meeting with Lucifer then I guess we all have eternal damnation to look forward to, even St. Chris Martin.  

Lucifer....

But honestly to me it sounds like an album of rejected songs, b-sides which never made the cut from previous albums or single releases.  With very few stand out tracks the album is nondescript; ‘Back Down South’ shows glimpses of quality but there is a lacklustre tone that is prevalent throughout the album.

I should not really comment on the quality of the lyrics because although they are a little shoddy, I remember a conversation with a friend who told me that “no one really knows the lyrics to the early songs.  If you sift through websites you will find differing examples.”  I would have to agree with him, the raspy punk shrill sometimes distorted the words beyond reckoning but then that was part of their charm.  But briefly the first song on the album The End is poor, the second verse for example:

“I see you in the evening 

Sitting on your throne 

And praying with the fireball, 

And posted it up against the wall 

I just wanna hold you 

Take you by your hand 

And tell you that your good enough 

Tell ya that it's gonna be tough” 

Now I know this is only one song but it is a flavour of the albums lyrical content.  There is nothing that holds you, nothing that connects to the fan.  It is all just a little generic and as a consequence a little drab.  It makes you wander when you receive plaudits from a musical legend like Bob Dylan for a song like ‘Trani’ from Youth and Young Manhood during their tour together then surely you are doing something right.   So why have they strayed so far from this kind of sound?

Bob Dylan: Kings Of Leon supported him in 2006

Similarly to the previous article, an underlying theme of confusion runs through this piece as Come Around Sundown does nothing to respond to this, but instead increases the amount of questions.  It is something that can’t be explained in words, other than to say I find it all rather bewildering.

Kings Of Leon will always retain a special place for me.  Although as you can see I am not a fan of the two most recent albums, I have grown up with Youth and Young Manhood; Aha Shake Heartbreak and Because of the Times and they are genuine quality that will be affectionately remembered for years to come.  As a result I have hope, perhaps nothing more than a fool’s hope but nonetheless I am confident that someday we will witness greatness from the Followill’s again, triumphantly reclaiming the title of “one of the great American bands of our times” (NME).