Kings of Leon’s O My Beloved arrives not as a return to the fast and fun, loud and hook-driven highs of Aha Shake Heartbreak and Only by the Night, but as something rarer: the sound of one of the 21st century’s best rock bands finally landing on the quality music they have been searching for these past 15 years.
I was 20 seconds into the first track and paused to send it to three friends with the accompanying comment: “They’re so back.”
Ten albums in, that phrase needs some unpacking. Because what’s back is not the band that set festivals alight with The Bucket or had stadiums shouting along to Sex on Fire. What’s back is the songwriting. O My Beloved, their tenth studio album and the first they have entirely self-produced, is the record this band has been circling for a decade and a half: patient, warm, country-tinged and almost defiantly sincere.
Recorded at their own Neon Leon studio in Nashville, it came together after a stretch of family tragedy and one broken foot. Caleb Followill injured himself playing with his kids, picked up an acoustic guitar while he healed, and watched the electric songs the band had been writing lose their appeal. What replaced them was 13 songs, nearly 50 minutes, about family, fatherhood, gratitude and grief: less a collection of singles than a bundle of letters passed between the three Followill brothers and their cousin, with the rest of us given permission to read over their shoulders.
To understand why that matters, you have to remember the run this band went on. From their 2003 debut Youth & Young Manhood to 2008’s Only by the Night, Kings of Leon were untouchable, and seemingly getting bigger and better with every release. Each album had its own distinct sound, yet each was a clear evolution of the last: the raw, swaggering garage rock of Youth & Young Manhood; the sharper, sexier strut of Aha Shake Heartbreak; the widescreen ambition of Because of the Times; and finally the full arrival of Only by the Night. Uniquely them, yet unique to each record. Few bands have ever grown that fast without losing themselves.
And Only by the Night was a phenomenon. Sex on Fire and Use Somebody became global anthems, the album sold in the millions, and the band collected Grammy Awards including Best Rock Album and Record of the Year. It was the kind of commercial madness that redefines a career.
Which made the comedown harder to take. 2010’s Come Around Sundown had its moments, and Radioactive still landed, but it felt like an echo of previous success rather than something earned. It was successful because the band was, not because it was good. Then came more albums: Mechanical Bull, WALLS, When You See Yourself and Can We Please Have Fun. And they were fine. Like so many bands.
But now they are back. They are so back. Some reviews have grumbled that O My Beloved plays it safe, that it is too midtempo, too comfortable. I hear the opposite: comfort, here, is earned. When a band has made as much noise as Kings of Leon have, quiet is the boldest move available. My Whole World passes down family recipes like heirlooms; Cold Blue Dawn remembers a childhood pilgrimage to Graceland and admits, “I imagined it different than this / Long nights in long cars, lonely bliss”; KOYSAR, or Kick Off Your Shoes and Run, romps through backyard chaos with the joy of a dad watching his own kids do what he and his brothers once did. Rose adds a little crunch for anyone missing the guitars, Forever Endeavor finds a whole song’s worth of gratitude in a child running through the spray of a hose, and closer Get You Down sends everyone home gently. It isn’t perfect, and the back half settles into a groove it doesn’t challenge, but Caleb Followill’s gentlest vocal delivery to date and the band’s refusal to reach for a hit are what make it their most honest record since those first four.
My primary-school-age son, for his part, is really waking up to music. After two weeks of listening to Oasis’ (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? twice a day, every day, he shifted his focus to Fatboy Slim’s You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby. I am proud of the albums he latches onto, but it is challenging to hear the same record on repeat, the way kids happily wear out their favourite movies. Driving home after dinner the other night, Fatboy Slim was not the right vibe for the car. I put O My Beloved on, and he immediately remarked, “This is perfect. Relax rock. This is what I need.”
It’s what we all need: quality rock music made by one of the 21st century’s best rock bands. We are now in our relaxed rock era.
I loved your review, John T. Bottom. I hope KoL get to read it, I think they’ll be stoked.