People give ‘dad’ a bad rep about his music, this is true, but anything that sits stale for thirty-five years is bound to be a bit rusty. While you were sitting the back seat being driven to soccer practice or where ever, music that changed the world and blew the ceilings off venues was played lightly in the background. If he had turned up “Highway 61 Revisited,” or “Houses of the Holy”, people would see what all of the fuss was about. Well, we don’t need to look to the past anymore. It’s true library trips are the best and the best pastime for many is stealing their parents albums, but there is a new group in the game and they are pulling the history of rock and roll with them, enter: Kings of Leon.

Three brothers and a cousin, born preacher’s sons, the Followill’s are from backwater Tennessee, the land that made Elvis and Quentin Tarnatino. Their debut album feature four of the five songs from their EP, Holy Roller Novocain. Youth and Young Manhood is a powerhouse of modern grunge rock fused with drunken blues musicianship and lyrics of small-town woes. It’s about time that a bands alcohol use isn’t what sells their albums but what makes them. The sex-obsessed and disillusioned Caleb, like all great rock icons, is the heart we get introduced to through vague lyrics and screaming nonsense. This band, simple at the core but reflective of all things that make the importance of living life, are not concerned with changing an image and discussing their dislike of social issues and modern music. Their style is bred from their self-obsessed expression that just so happens to have a hand in everything that people need to hear. Whether they take themselves seriously or not, or if they are the best musicians on the block, take a back seat when their album is turned up. Short powerhouses that devolve into a mess of disgruntled yells and feedback riddled guitars; the theme of being lost and bottoming out is handled with “Trani”. If you’ve ever had a girl you just can’t reach, Kings of Leon have it with “Molly’s Chambers”. When friends come together and it’s time to leave your small town behind, the kings make the perfect modern addition to gazing at a Los Angeles skyline and wishing for more with “California Waiting”. One won’t find too many musical or poetic inspirations from the age that the kings mirror and resurrect so completely, but this is music that uses influence not as a source of ripping off, but as true inspiration. A great man once said that music finds you; don’t hide from Kings of Leon.