But “Notion” is an unexpectedly accomplished example of them at their least punchable – Caleb Followill’s yowling cipher of a voice avoids talking about girls directly (always a weakness) and the post-chorus guitar/piano chime is nicely handled. Ian Mathers: I’ve had a softer spot for these Southern-fried lunkheads than most around these parts since “The Bucket,” although at their worst they dip past tedious and ill-advised and straight into insufferable.
#Kings of leon use somebody guitar tone plus#
Plus there’s a really neatly processed guitar solo. But I don’t get tired of Caleb Followill’s voice, even after it says “don’t knock it” for the 237th time. Martin Kavka: This isn’t as good as “Use Somebody,” and at times it threatens to sink into Hootie levels of banality. But I hope we can agree that the guitar tone is kind of unusual and interesting? Matt Cibula: Can’t imagine this sounding good on the radio at all, even though they seem to be bending over backwards to be radio-friendly pitch shifters. You can take your hands out of his pockets. Hillary Brown: Bob Seger’s not even dead, guys. How did anyone think this was a good choice for a single? Or even a B-side? My life energy levels dropped by 74% while listening to this, which makes it a positive danger to humanity. Martin Skidmore: Horrible strangled old-fashioned Southern rock vocals on a musical base that I think wants to be moody, but just trudges along very slowly, head down, joyless, as if it were an old man needing to be hospitalised. They’re making the Hold Steady look like the bar band amateurs they are (maybe), and I can’t get enough of it. But amazingly, here we are, and KoL are continuing to play the part of the best arena rock band in the country, with all the genre’s most rewarding, lighter-waving hallmarks–chugging drums, soaring guitar, widescreen production and brilliantly yearning vocals. If you told me two years ago that I’d be giving a fourth single off a new Kings of Leon album an 8 rating (and fighting off the urge to go higher), I’d have shaved off all my facial hair in protest. Not their strongest effort.Īndrew Unterberger: My love for this band gets more unlikely every day. Anyway, as is often the case with KoL, the band are “tight” and “lay down” a good “riff” or two and then the singer kind of smears himself all over it and it’s all rather disgusting really.īriony Edwards: Missing the quiet melancholy that has made their material so effective in the last year or so, this song is both initially unrecognisable (the intro sounds like a slowed down Andrew WK crossed with The Hold Steady), and instantly forgetable - and this is coming from a Kings of Leon appreciator. For those of us who’ve spent our lives sighing at rock, the remorseless ascent of the Kings makes us feel like socially-aware parents whose teenage son just got a subscription to Nuts. Tom Ewing: It’s not so much that I don’t comprehend the appeal of the Kings of Leon, more that I don’t want to admit it. Still no Southern boogie in their groove, though for all I know people stopped claiming that about them maybe some ’00s U2 in the background chiming, but why is that good? Chorus? Ummm.Ĭhuck Eddy: Still waiting to hear a single track by these consistently half-assed, completely unrocking excuses for rock saviors that gives even any indication why people consider them an alternative to the constipated post-post-grunge hordes they basically sound (and especially sing) like. Pharrell WilliamsĬhris Boeckmann: Twinkly keyboards? Check. Donnie Trumpet & the Social Experiment.
Email (song suggestions/writer enquiries).
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