words: Jamie Milton

The reviews are beginning to pour in. ‘Come Around Sundown’ finds its feet a mere two years since Kings Of Leon hit the big time; releasing ‘Sex On Fire’; establishing themselves as full-time festival headliners. To little surprise, the album’s received a more than mixed reception from the music press. The follow-up to breakthrough ‘Only By the Night’ itself is a fairly mid-tempo, unarguably accessible record, capable of cementing the Nashville four piece’s stadium status and soundtracking football highlights on Match Of The Day. And strangely, this achievement seems to be the basis of nearly every negative review. Critics seem almost miffed at the band’s decision not to trace their steps and go back to recording gritty, dirty Southern rock. 

Dom Gourlay’s 3/10 verdict, scribed for Drowned In Sound, has a distinct whiff of bitterness: he resembles Kings of Leon’s catastrophic rise to something of a “forcefeeding” and makes reference to the band as a “commercially successful enterprise”, after claiming that the record’s sleeve should have the words ‘Cash Cow’ graced on its front. Although the review reads more like a general attack on the band than a cry of outrage at the Followill’s cashing in, there seems very much to be an undertone of disgust at just how wealthy, just how popular a sound he considers to be “bland” really is. 

Granted, I’ve heard many a tale of these self-confessed rich boys turning up to backstage areas in individual limousines and skipping the odd toilet queue. I’ve also witnessed them refusing to turn up on stage - although in that case, Benicassim festival as a whole had to be called off for a night.  

But ignore the arrogance and compare this seizing of the initiative, this complete realisation that any refusal to stay true to this big, atmospheric and yes, somewhat bland sound, would be stupidity - compare that to MGMT’s diving into a pit of mud: ‘Oracular Spectacular’ was an almighty streamlined-indie-rock achievement and the follow-up, ‘Congratulations, barren of a tune, was not.  The difference between ‘Come Around Sundown’ and ‘Congratulations’ - both albums not shy of receiving a negative review - is that one sells a lot of copies and the other doesn’t. MGMT have already been quoted as saying that the record label won’t give them nearly as much freedom (refusing to release singles/hits) next time around. And Columbia on the other hand, are basking in the hipstamatic rays of their biggest cash-reaper’s latest album cover. 

Of course this default setting for critics, and many music fans, to immediately switch into once a band hits the big time, is anything but unheard of. Coldplay will never again be the band that released ‘Parachutes’, for many. The Strokes couldn’t possibly top ‘Is This It’. And Kings Of Leon should throw away their razors, go back to their roots and kiss goodbye to the main stage. Or maybe not.