The release of ‘Mechanical Bull‘ at least quashes any rumours floating around that, as a band, Kings Of Leon have reached the end of the road following a number of inter-related problems which dogged the quartet during the making – and touring – of their last record ‘Come Around Sundown‘.
Album opener and first single ‘Supersoaker‘ is (aside from the moronic title) a heavy, rocky three-minute slice of unadulterated enthusiasm, with a chorus that verges on being quite catchy. Caleb Followill‘s lyrics never were exactly notes of poetic genius, and here they are equally as clunky and superficial, seeming to be exclusively tailored for the gesticulations, and slurring voices, of drunk people. He doesn’t mind sentimental girls, at times, whatever that means.
To all intents and purposes, the track is nothing more than a good, fun, dumb party anthem, and one hopes the party will continue but, well, things don’t quite pan out like that.
Listening to Kings Of Leon is like the musical equivalent of having dinner in a chain pub; vastly popular with various demographics of society. Cheap, filling, and goes well with alcohol. By the same token, this isn’t exactly a gastric thrill-seekers idea of a stratospheric magic carpet ride; plain, bland and, for the large part, lacking any real substance.
‘Rock City‘ faintly resembles Pink‘s ‘Hazard To Myself‘, if said tune had been written in a loafing, country rock style, with a vocal melody that is equally as humm-able, but with lyrics that somehow aren’t as catchy. The same goes for the largely dismal ‘Beautiful War‘, one of a handful of rocky ballads here, and five minutes of mechanical sounding bass and drum, over which hover guitar lines lifted straight from U2 circa ‘Joshua Tree‘, and capped with Caleb’s bar-room vocals, waffling away: “Tip of your tongue, the top of your lungs, is doing my head in.”
‘Wait For Me‘ begins with a cycle of almost shoe-gazing guitars which are joined by a relatively pleasant array of punctuations, all of which are spoiled by another round of the singer’s cater whaling. Yes, these might be emotive songs for your average fifteen year old, about five years ago, but for everyone else they have all the emotional impact of a slice of cucumber hitting the face of an iceberg.
For the large part, the album lacks any genuine energy, any power-combustion excitement or depth, and is instead the sound of a band artfully going through the motions. After all, like they’ve done with everything throughout their career, Kings Of Leon have borrowed a piece from here, a piece from there, lifted elements of Seventies rock (like most self-respecting rock bands have done since, well, the Seventies) and tea-leafed portions of Eighties hair metal to construct a record of rock golems that, for the large part, lacks anything even remotely resembling an actual beating heart.
Anyone out there aiming to get into this band have probably arrived at the party a little late, and would be advised to either borrow an earlier effort, cherry pick from Bruce Springsteen‘s back catalogue, or go check out Band Of Horses – at least something that isn’t a load of…’mechanical’ bull.
