Kings in Waiting
Kings of Leon’s third album is compelling, but does it contain a breakthrough hit?
by Jason Wilkins
Nashville’s most internationally recognized rock band Kings of Leon released their third full-length album this week, Because of the Times, and with it has come yet another round of fashion spreads and piles of press. Rolling Stone’s Rob Sheffield proclaimed it the Kings’ crowning achievement, while Spin slammed it as “unfocused jamming” that lacked songs.
Most national press angles for this album have annoyingly centered on America’s utter failure to embrace the band. These otherwise smart journalists lead most every article with the dumbest question: why isn’t the band bigger here?
Any MTSU music biz student knows the answer: in the U.K., a band can go platinum with just great press, but in the U.S. of A., the only way a rock band sells a million records is with a hit song on the radio. Just ask Modest Mouse. I could be wrong, and for the band’s sake I hope I am, but I don’t hear anything on this album that could be called the Kings’ “Float On,” or even a new version of their own “The Bucket.” At least, nothing that’s gonna make the critics’ dreams of America welcoming the Kings into the ranks of modern-rock royalty come true.
To be sure, there are some great ideas, great riffs and great lines to be found on Because of the Times, but nothing that would qualify as a great single. Three songs come close. The monstrous thunderbolt “Black Thumbnail” is a more natural bridge between Aha Shake Heartbreak and Times than current single “On Call,” or the album’s seven-minute opening droner “Knocked Up.” Another close call, the track “Fans,” shows the band’s ability to dig into Midwestern roots-rock without bowing to Mellencamp corniness, providing a glimpse into what eventually could be their golden ticket.
“True Love Way” is perhaps the most traditional sounding song on the album, and in many ways it’s the record’s most frustrating track. It’s a tease of a number that hints at achieving the album’s big melodic payoff, but sadly it just builds and builds toward a climax that never comes. Crowning achievement? No. Unfocused jamming? Not really. Breakthrough record? Maybe next time.
I’ve always thought Belmont and MTSU students who attend Southern soul-rocker Will Hoge’s shows should get credit for a course in live performance. And now there’s a correspondence course, his live album Again Somewhere Tomorrow (culled from a two-night stand at Exit/In in 2006). And if you need CliffsNotes, just check out album opener “The Man Who Killed Love.”
The song begins with a spare harmonica, rumbling keys and Hoge’s voice, but he doesn’t ease into the night. After a brief intro, Hoge and his backing band, augmented here with backup singers and a horn section, storm the stage with the kind of unbridled fervor most performers save for the grand finale (or at least their hit single). But as anyone who has seen his shows can attest, that’s what we’ve come to expect from Hoge.
Without a radio hit or a commercially successful record, Hoge has lived purely off the pull of his live performances. From his days with Spoonful to his tenure on Atlantic Records, he’s shown an onstage ability to be wild, reckless and intensely intimate with soul music in a way that Taylor Hicks will never know. And for the first time, there’s a fitting warts-and-all document—it’s a little heavy on the vocal histrionics, and the extended jamming can trudge on at times—that actually comes close to capturing one of his shows.
If you’re waiting for Will Hoge’s younger brother Josh finally to release his Epic Records debut, you’ll be waiting a while. According to Josh, it will likely never see the light of day, at least not anytime in the near future. Instead, Hoge has issued a stripped-down EP, Bedroom Sessions Vol. I, and is working on a new round of songs for Columbia. He’s moving away from the slick, mainstream-pop style of Call It What You Want, and is now going for a “more organic, more live, more grown-up” sound he that describes as “more Joss Stone than Justin Timberlake.”
If this EP is any indication of that move, it could be a questionable one. This semi-unplugged affair, while expertly executed, can’t help but be disappointing compared to the pristine-pop promise he exhibited on the unreleased Call It (three songs from which get reworked here, including his shoulda-been-a-hit single “360”). Unlike the jam-pop singer-songwriter material of the crowd he sometimes runs with (Matt Wertz, Dave Barnes et al.), commercial pop music such as Hoge’s rarely sounds best in an acoustic context. This is big-media music and it deserves a big presentation, not an unplugged one.
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