Kings of Leon - 'Come Around Sundown' Review

Kings of Leon follow up their breakthrough album with a laidback, confident one. Come Around Sundown, the Tennessee quartet’s fifth record, is a more polished and melodic affair than Only by the Night, the record that finally helped win over the American audience with huge singles like “Sex on Fire” and “Use Somebody,” but its most appealing quality is that it doesn’t try self-consciously to top its predecessor. Instead, Come Around Sundown simply shows a talented rock band honing its craft to winning effect.

Talking about Come Around Sundown back in May, Kings of Leon drummer Nathan Followill’s comments turned out to be frighteningly accurate to how the final product turned out. “Honestly, with the success of the last record...a lot of people thought we would put a lot of pressure on ourselves and go in there and try to recreate what we thought was successful on the last record,” he said at the time. “I’ll be damned if we didn't go in there and make a fun record.” That’s absolutely right on both counts: With the exception of the album-opening “The End,” Come Around Sundown doesn’t contain a single track that feels like “More Sex on Fire” or “Use Somebody 2,” and even at its most impassioned the album radiates a warm charm that helps chase away the blues. Kings of Leon seem to have decided that they were just going to relax and write songs, rather than worrying about super-sizing their ambitions or in some way “challenging” their audience with a more experimental sound. As a result, Come Around Sundown’s lack of grand gestures may feel like a letdown to some, but its consistent tuneful assurance grows on you.

One of the band’s secret weapons has been frontman Caleb Followill’s charismatic, ruggedly sexy voice, and Come Around Sundown proves to be a showcase for its dramatic range. Whether he’s projecting fiery urgency on the soulful, rocking “Radioactive” or expressing weary, nostalgic thoughts of home on the country-tinged “Back Down South,” Followill never sounds enraptured with his own vocal skills, superbly coming across as a Southern everyman rather than a rock star. It’s an important distinction since Only by the Night’s commercial success could have inspired Followill to switch up his singing style, but while it remains drenched in echo when the situation calls for it, like on the mournful “Pyro,” he doesn’t try to oversell the songs’ drama and heartbreak.

Come Around Sundown’s sultry, moody sound can lead to problems in the first half where some of the tracks aren’t as immediately riveting. But the record’s final stretch is a thing of beauty, containing excellent examples of the different genres Kings of Leon can do. “Pony Up” is alt-rock with a danceable groove underneath, smart and vaguely funky at the same time. “Birthday” is classic come-hither, with Followill embracing the song’s sexy, steamy undertones while the band inject elements of Southern rock into the mix. The record’s finale, “Pickup Truck,” is very much in the mold of a lot of album-closing songs -- it starts with a slow, deliberate buildup before exploding into an epic chorus. But in a sign of how comfortable Kings of Leon are with their specific songwriting gifts, they find ways to make a conventional structure resonate by utilizing their talents for mixing jagged emotions with precise musicianship.

It took four albums for Kings of Leon to receive the popular support in their home country that they’d already earned in Europe. As a result, Come Around Sundown comes bearing the weight of expectations from those new fans. Thankfully, Kings of Leon opted to be themselves and let the chips fall where they may. Commercially, the new record may not be able to match Only by the Night, but creatively it’s more than its equal. And isn’t that more important, really?

'Come Around Sundown' – Best Tracks:

“Radioactive” (Purchase/Download)
“Back Down South” (Purchase/Download)
“Pickup Truck” (Purchase/Download)
“Birthday” (Purchase/Download)
“Pony Up” (Purchase/Download)

Release date – October 19, 2010
RCA