Only By The Night - Kings of Leon

Rating - 2.5

About a minute into the music video for "Sex on Fire", the lead single for the new Kings of Leon album Only By the Night, there is one noticeable difference from their previous work: image. Since their 2006 album "Because of the Times" lead singer Caleb Followill has been primmed, dolled up and in many ways molded for mass consumption. But it wasn't just Caleb and his bros (the band consists of three brothers and a cousin) who were trimmed up, it was also their music.

So what happened? Well, for one they became one of the biggest bands in Great Britain on the wings of the single "On Call" and gave a couple infamous performances at large English festivals. So, perhaps it was the knowledge that their next album would be need to be performed on a larger scale than ever, specifically arenas in Europe, that provoked KoL to turn down the distortion, slow down the tempo, and compromise themselves into a sound that is less like the downbeat groove of the Strokes and more like the "Ohhh-Ahh-Ohhh" anthems of recent Coldplay albums.

Why Caleb feels the need to make his voice whimper between nearly every interval I'll never know, but the trick gets old very quickly. Lyrically, he's gotten no better, and I would venture to say that KoL's lyrics are among the worst in modern rock. Take "Use Somebody", which sounds like a bad Carole King cover, or "17" which provides at least the third major piece of evidence in their short career that Caleb is bonafide white trash. It was obvious to me upon first listen that this release was either a misstep or safe deviation, but it wasn't until one of the albums final cuts "Be Somebody" where Caleb whines "Given a chance...If for one dance/I wanna be somebody" that I knew I was hearing the sound of selling out. (10/26/08)