Kings of Leon: American Regal
Their Southern Gothic mystique helped make Kings of Leon multiplatinum rock gods overseas. What will it take for the boozin' and brawlin' Followill boys to conquer their native land?
By David Peisner 09.22.08 11:03 AM
Caleb Followill needs a dentist. The day before the biggest gig of his life, the 26- year-old Kings of Leon frontman is standing outside a boutique hotel in London, flanked by his bald, tattooed bodyguard and his girlfriend, a thin, dark-haired model named Lily Aldridge.
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Kings of Leon, 'Only by the Night' (RCA)
Swaggering Tennessee boys find mad love on the moonlit road.
By Jaan Uhelszki 09.19.08 5:18 PM
On their fourth album, the Kings of Leon still rule with a messy hand, applying rough magic and blurry, slurred imagery to their swashbuckling rock. Sonically more Stones than Skynyrd, the Nashville quartet still travel the haunted ground between sin and redemption that their Dixie forefathers have tilled since the Allman brothers first wailed "Whipping Post" at the end of the '60s.
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Mogwai, 'The Hawk Is Howling' (Matador)
The only seriously epic rock that doesn't take itself too seriously.
By Joe Gross 09.19.08 3:24 PM
Have these once-deafening, instrumental Scots finally returned to the Imax guitar-rock dynamics that made them one of the most egregiously ripped-off underground bands of the past ten years?
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David Grubbs, 'An Optimist Notes the Dusk' (Drag City)
Prof. Grubbs' class is cool and all, but the reading list is a bitch.
By Andy Beta 09.19.08 3:13 PM
Is David Grubbs post-rock's godfather (as founder of Bastro and Gastr del Sol) or a stuffy professor moonlighting on guitar (he now teaches at Brooklyn College)?
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Cold War Kids, 'Loyalty to Loyalty' (Downtown)
Former blog darlings crank up the cranky complaints.
By Jessica Suarez 09.19.08 2:55 PM
While Cold War Kids may not make religious music, they like to preach. The California band open their second album by overtly endorsing the bohemian lifestyle ("Against Privacy"), then singer Nathan Willett intensifies the finger- wagging: "Raising your kids, America / You treat 'em like an obligation" (from "Welcome to the Occupation," not an R.E.M. cover).
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Jenny Lewis, 'Acid Tongue' (Warner Bros.)
Amid studio luster, her essence gets lost.
By Stacey Anderson 09.19.08 2:46 PM
In the 1989 film Troop Beverly Hills, a gaggle of preteen Girl Scouts clomped around Rodeo Drive waving cookies and Chanel, alarming their poorer/homelier peers with ditzy elitism and lacquered soul bonding. The flock's mantra, screamed into eternity, was: "We're the troop from Beverly Hills! Shopping is our greatest skill!"
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