Riding with The Kings
4 Out Of 5 Stars
The Kings of Leon took the old fashioned route to stardom; they made consistent albums, toured relentlessly, ignored trends and waited for the world to catch up. Their fifth album, "Come Around Sundown," capitalizes on that steady as we go philosophy by keeping to the basics. Caleb Followill still sings like he's got honey in his mouth, the guitars are big and echoed, yet trace their roots to Southern Rock via U2's arena blast, and the songs themselves are rants and rolls about love, women and sex.
If you caught on to Kings Of Leon via "Only By The Night's" hits, that will probably suit you just fine. For those of us with the band since "Youth and Young Manhood," this will fee like a holding pattern. Granted, they are still messing with the formula (the dow-woppy "Mary" or the slide guitar country of "Back Down South"), for the most part, "Come Around Sundown" sounds pat.
That still isn't enough to wash them off just yet, as both "The End" and the hooky "Radioactive" hit the right spots. "Beach Side" could be the smoothest track they've done so far. The bass line in "Pony Up" makes me smile each time I hear it. Kings Of Leon have yet to disappoint me, and even though "Come Around Sundown" doesn't show the kind of exponential progressions that the first four albums did from each other, it's still a great rock album from a band at the top of their game.
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