A couple times a year, the British populace-for the most part a stoic, bemused, somewhat cranky lot-suddenly lose their heads over a hot new rock 'n' roll band. Some are deserving, like the Strokes or the White Stripes, but the majority of the hyped bands do not deserve a cup to spit in.
The newest group to receive this widespread adulation, Nashville's Kings of Leon, falls somewhere in between the two extremes. Their debut album, Youth and Young Manhood, shows the band struggling to find an interesting sound of their own, in the process creating a promising but ultimately unremarkable first effort.
The Kings of Leon's main area of novelty, distinguishing them from all the other emerging rock bands, is that they do not emulate the icons from the New York and Detroit scenes, like the Velvet Underground or Television or the Stooges. Their templates instead lie in the Southern rock they grew up with: Tom Petty, Neil Young and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
And yet, for a reason that may have something to do with marketing, the Kings sometimes still sound quite a bit like the Strokes. The two bands share a fondness for precise guitar solos and elementary drumming and the similarities on the Kings' \Happy Alone"" and ""Genius"" are obvious. The Kings are not as tight as the Strokes and rely more on distortion for a sloppier, dirtier, less hook-laden sound.
Very rarely do the Kings turn this sound into interesting songs, though. They never sound too much like any of their Southern-rock precursors, but they also never tread too much new ground stylistically. Too many of the songs on Youth and Young Manhood sound too much alike for any of them to make an impact; and, on the low point of the album, ""California Waiting,"" the Kings even sound uncomfortably close to Candlebox.
The fact that they are not merely parroting their forebears, though, lends promise for the Kings in the future. The ability to merely nod their head in the direction of Petty or Skynyrd and then continue off down their own path is admirable in a young band. It is just that the Kings path right now is not fully realized and diverse, leading to a mediocre, homogenous album.
Several of the songs do stand out, namely ""Spiral Staircase"" and ""Holy Roller Novocaine,"" and the album gains energy toward the end. Lack of energy is not the problem with this album, though-lack of originality is.
This band is not going to break up any time soon (it is made up of three brothers and a cousin) and so they will have plenty of time to hone their sound as they mature. Keep an eye on the Kings in the future: better things are certainly forthcoming.
