A few years ago, when Youth & Young Manhood first came out, Bean stormed into our regular pub, gently put down her discman with a very serious look and said ‘you have to listen to this band, I have a physical reaction to them’. Right then and there, over cokes and breakfast rolls she made me listen to it. Now, five years and four albums later, we’re still loyal followers of the Followills. In honor of their new album, Only By The Night, this 100best is dedicated to the Kings Of Leon. We’ll be choosing the song from their entire oeuvre that gives us that same physical reaction we had when we first heard them.
aDawgg:
Perhaps it’ll just take time, but Only By The Night doesn’t have the same grip on me as the earlier Kings Of Leon albums. What I’ve always enjoyed about the Kings is their energy. Even on slower-paced songs it feels as if they were simply containing themselves. I feel them most when they let it loose. This must be exactly what many bands hate. I don’t care – “Molly’s Chambers” just has it. A tale to be told. The hillbilly sound that took us by surprise in 2003. A tanginess that leaves your mouth watering. It’s quintessential Kings Of Leon.
Kings Of Leon – Molly’s Chambers
Bean:
Although I like the ‘80s-influenced KOL, they were even better before. Their first two albums sounded like they were recorded in a Tennessee trailer park in 1973, fueled by cans of cheap beer and girls in tiny cut-off shorts. They were sleazy and dirty, about the kind of people you don’t introduce to your mother. None more so than “Holy Roller Novocaine”, about a nasty preacher man abusing his position. Sung in Caleb Followill’s gritty drawl, the slow, quiet verses make it feel that touch more creepy; the explosive choruses sound like both church and sin at the same time.
Kings Of Leon – Holy Roller Novocaine
Tamboosh:
Nearly all songs on their first two albums have moments that make them a potential favorite, but every Followill’s skill is most spectacularly demonstrated, especially when played live, on “Trani”. Dangerously, it oozes, slow like molasses closer to a spine-tingling ending that makes all that came before it seem like foreplay. It so obviously yanks at heartstrings like toddlers with puppies begging for pennies, but is never trite. From any other band the climactic ending would have been over the top, but they pull it off with such ease and passion and ended up with a song that’s pure sex.
Kings Of Leon – Trani
