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Set for an October release. “Come Around Sundown” is the Nashville band’s fifth album and follows in the long shadow cast by their 2008 breakthrough CD, “Only by the Night”.
Having recorded all their previous work in either Nashville or Los Angeles, the band chose to record the majority of their forthcoming album amid the hustle and bustle of New York City where they sought after inspiration for a darker, more grungier sound. The result, they say, has been somewhat unexpected.
Fans were given a taste of the new material recently when the song “Radioactive” was released as a video on the band’s website and made its radio debut shortly thereafter. The track is the first single off “Come Around Sundown”, a cd title that continues in the five-syllable custom of previous Kings of Leon albums “Youth and Young Manhood” [2003], “Aha Shake Heartbreak” [2004], “Because of the Times” [2007], and “Only by the Night” [2008]. Driven by the refrain “It’s in the water/It’s where you came from”, the song is catchy from first listen. It recalls the band’s earlier southern rock influences and mixes them with the smooth sound of their Grammy Award-winning work on “Only by the Night”.
The track’s sepia-tinged clip shows the Followills – brothers Caleb (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Nathan (drums), and Jared (bass) and cousin Matthew (lead guitar) – hanging out at a Southern-style summer barbecue where they fly kites, ride bikes, and run through sprinklers in sun-drenched fields with a gathering of African-American children who serve as a choir when the band hits the barn to rock out. “Radioactive” provides a glimpse into the Kings of Leon’s Southern origins. It’s a wholesome video, one band members are sure will redeem them in their grandmother’s eyes.
Although the song might be new to the public, bassist Jared Followill says the band have been kicking it around for quite some time. Written between the albums “Aha Shake” and “Because the Times”, “Radioactive” holds a huge deal of personal meaning to the Bible-bred Followills who grew up with gospel music. Originally from Tennessee, they spent much of their childhoods traveling to various Southern churches and congregations with their father, a Pentecostal preacher. The band decided to revisit the song for the new album but were almost forced to shelve it yet again when they couldn’t get the choruses and verses to match up. It was only when Caleb went back to an old spiritual song they’d all sung while growing up that “Radioactive” finally clicked.
In spite of its big city origins, “Come Around Sundown” isn’t without its country streak. In addition to the gospel-flavored “Radioactive,” the song “Back Down South” includes a fiddle while “Mary” has a ’50s doo-wop vibe. MTV’s Kyle Anderson says the Kings’ new music is “a sort of Zeppelin-flavored blues romp that imports a bit of Loretta Lynn for good measure.
It strikes just the exact balance between melt-your-face rocking and twang-drenched beauty”. Nathan describes the album’s overall outcome as “beach-y.” That’s Followill speak for “laid-back,” not “California Gurls.”
Reprinted by permission of GuitarTricks.com the home of Online Guitar Lessons
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