Generalising wildly for a moment, authenticity is a much-overvalued commodity in rock’n’roll. When the Kings Of Leon first sauntered into Britain nearly two years ago, they were greeted by a largely suspicious media. Surely, these four Memphis boy-men with historically resonant beards, impeccable ‘70s white trash styling and a backstory as sons of a drunk preacher were too good to be true?
How convenient, we whispered, that an apparently ingenuous bunch could stumble on such a novel twist on the zeitgeist: combining, as they did, The Strokes’ metronomic jangle with a whinnying Southern twang. Eventually, it emerged that the Kings were “assisted” in their work by a veteran Nashville songwriter called Angelo and producer Ethan Johns. Here, it seemed, were a contrived indie boy band who, shamefully, had never paid their dues.
Not that any of this really mattered, of course. “Youth And Young Manhood” was an entertaining, disposable debut album, with a handful of catchy singles and a sweet, if hackneyed, grasp of rock’n’roll signifiers. In the unlikely event that the entire thing had been conceived by a shadowy rock Illuminati, using the callow Followill family as puppets – well, that would’ve made the project more, rather than less, interesting.
Whether that formula can stretch to another album is, however, more of a problem. On the awkwardly-titled “A-Ha Shake Heartbreak”, the Kings Of Leon (or their handlers) have made a conscious decision to try and mature. Gone, for the most part, are the bobbling melodies that made their debut so charming. Redneck indie bubblegum is beneath them now, replaced by a denser, gnarlier, even mournful edge. There’s still plenty of spirit to songs like “Pistol Of Fire” and “Soft” (both, conspiracy theorists should note, co-written with Angelo). Adolescent lust remains a constant, and at times Caleb Followill’s horniness veers perilously close to misogyny.
But the hooks are much scarcer, and there’s a sense that dumb poppy abandon has been rejected. Either that, or they’ve run out of tunes. What remains – on the misfiring “Four Kicks”, in particular - is a jerky, cocksure indie group striving to be accepted as a proper grown-up Southern Rock band, without the guts, depth or tunes to carry it off. It’d be churlish to criticise Kings Of Leon for wanting to move on.
It’d be sillier still, though, to buy “A-Ha Shake Heartbreak” rather than, say, “The Dirty South” by Alabama’s Drive-By Truckers: the sort of gristly, meaningful, hard-rocking classic that the Followills clearly aspire to make. But one which, for now, is almost tragically beyond their talents.
