Album Review: Kings of Leon “Come Around Sundown” (Background)
9-21-11
The Kings of Leon have one of the most interesting background stories in the modern history of rock and pop music. Nathan, Caleb and Jared Followill are all preacher Leon Followill’s sons. They were raised on the roads and in the churches of the South with their father and mother, and were even home-schooled. After enduring a childhood where the brothers could not even listen to music outside of church, their lives changed when their father resigned from his Church position and divorced his wife. In 1997, Nathan and Caleb moved to Nashville to pursue music. In 2000, they included their younger brother Jared, and a cousin, Matthew Followill, and created the Kings of Leon-named for their father. Caleb and Matthew play guitar, Nathan plays drums, and Jared plays the bass. The Kings of Leon were up-and-comers after signing to RCA Records in 2002, and started a huge buzz from their debut albums Holy Roller Novocain and Youth and Young Manhood in 2003. They were beginning to be embraced as “The Southern Strokes” for their southern boogie and twang mixed with the Dixie- style Rock & Roll. The band received an especially warm welcoming into the markets of the UK, where they would receive platinum album sales. “Sex on Fire,” the single from the album Only by the Night was a #1 hit in the UK and #4 in the US.
Come Around Sundown is the Kings of Leon’s fifth album, and it was recorded live, just as the rest of their albums were. The single on Come Around Sundown is “Radioactive” (which I like for a selection as a single, but am not particularly fond of the lyrics). It was actually recorded prior to the release of their third album, but it had more of a “punk rock feel to it” according to singer Caleb Followill. According to Jared Followill, who plays bass, the bass-line on “The End” is so difficult he says he looks like “Quasimoto” with his neck cringed by the end of the live performance of the song. The third song, “Pyro” was inspired, according to Caleb, by a story he heard about radical Christians who lived in the mountains and were then sieged by the FBI, and the subsequent feelings were about burning down the world we live in. “Back Down South” was actually recorded while everyone was drunk in the studio, which I thought I could actually hear during my first listen to the song. The band members claim the album title is not a reference to a command to come around sundown, and is actually a reference to the coming of sundown, in a time perspective. The albums true strengths, according to band members, is a return to country roots in songs such as “Back Down South” and the ability to be played straight through without skipping, which is where the term “beachy” came to be used to describe it.
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