If you were expecting another follow up to KOL's big success album 'Only By The Night' then you have not been up to date with any music press, Caleb Followill recently described their massive hits "a pile of ****" and the band have declined popular tv shows and films from using their music on their soundtracks the most notable being the dreadful show called Glee. Come Around Sundown is not an easy record, it can be abrasive on the ears and overloaded with ideas, noise, melody and rhythm constantly colliding and reconfiguring, but it’s confidence is immediately gripping, and as it emerges into the light it begins to sound ever more splendid. Youngest brother Jared’s clubby, rolling, stop-start basslines underpin everything, locking tight with eldest sibling Nathan’s subtly nimble, percussive drum patterns. Cousin Matthew flies over the top with staccato riffs and echoing licks, his range of tones and effects beginning to rival the sci-fi atmospherics of U2’s the Edge. At the centre is Caleb, seeking meaning in elliptical memories, his imagery veers between the poetically opaque and heart-wrenchingly direct, his voice angst-ridden, frayed, lost and lonesome. Raised to follow in his preaching father’s footsteps, Caleb sings like it’s not just a matter of life and death, it’s more serious than that. The themes of the album are all issues related to things going on in the band's life according to recent interviews and the idea was to get rid of all the mainstream fans who think KOL are about songs like 'Sex on Fire and Use Somebody" and to begin the transition back to previous albums and what they call the real Kings Of Leon. This album is the start of that movement with only one song that has the same feel as 'OBTN' which is Radioactive. All in all a good album that takes a few listens to grow and become enjoyable.
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