Aug 2003

'Youth And Young Manhood' is the stunning debut album from Nashville's Kings Of Leon. Consisting of three brothers and one cousin - Caleb Followill (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Nathan Followill (drums), Jared Followill (bass), Matthew Followill (lead guitar) - the Kings travelled around the Deep South with their minister father playing as the pick up band in whatever church their father had landed in. These routes and an eclectic mix of influences infuse a debut album the NME is already calling'the sound of 2003'. Includes the singles 'Molly's Chambers' and 'Red Morning Light'.

"We discovered the freedom to look at religion in a light that we wanted to look at it in. That's when we really kind of cocooned, really started to experience so many aspects of life that, before, we'd never even known were out there. I mean, Zeppelin and the Stones and Tom Petty and all that, we got to listen to a little bit growing up, but we never really got to go buya record and sit there and listen to the whole thing ten times in a row. Now we can write and play and record, giving people who hear us, we hope, a glimpse into the mind or imagination of real guys who have been through real stuff and are trying to put our experiences into words that go well with the kind of music that we like to play. Once we heard bands like White Stripes, it just gave me chillbumps, because we thought: Maybe we can do this, and maybe we can do it kind of cool" - Nathan Followill

'They are to 2003 what Oasis were to 1994 and the Strokes were to 2001 - the most exiting new rock band of the year. All hail to the kings' - 9/10 NME

'...definitely irresistible' - **** Bang

• Rolling Stone (9/4/03, p.138) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...The thrill is in the groove. Some of the time that means jacked-up garage punk...but the Kings are also a Southern rhythm section to the core..."
  Spin (8/03, pp.111-2) - "...[Kings of Leon] bash and pop like they've been rock stars for years....drifts with the sort of slack backwoods passion Dylan found in Nashville skylines and the Stones saw in wild horses..." - Grade: B+
  Entertainment Weekly (8/22-29/03, p.132) - "...Nashville's Kings shake up [Southern rock's] rural tendencies with the clamor of garage rock, mixing compact chords, frantic leads, and bashing drums with frontman Caleb Followill's drawl..." - Rating: B+
  Mojo (9/03, p.104) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...Pedal steel guitars beckon, suggesting that the Kings of Leon are more than the right band at the right time..."
  Uncut (8/03, p.110) - 5 stars out of 5 - "...The kind of life-affirming, slack-strung Gibson SG, four-to-the-floor sonic blitz that makes you want to chain-smoke full-strength Chesterfields chased with lids of Hawaiian while swigging a court of Jim by the neck..."
  Magnet (9/03, p.105) - "...With unlikely injections of Wet Willie and lyrical stories told in a drawled yell....[The Kings] were weaned on the car radio, grocery-store rock mags and hours sitting inside hot-ass laundromats..."
• NME (20/12/03, p.60) - Ranked #7 in NME's "50 Albums Of 2003" - "...a modern benchmark for all debut albums."

'Youth And Young Manhood' is the debut album from Nashville-based band Kings Of Leon. Featuring production work from Ethan Johns (Ryan Adams/Crosby Stills & Nash), the album fuses gritty southern garage rock, blues, alt-country and classic rock. Includes tracks taken from their first two EP's such as 'Molly Chambers' and 'Red Morning Light'.

Kings Of Leon: Caleb Followill (vocals, guitar); Matthew Followill (guitar); Jared Followill (bass); Nathan Followill (drums, background vocals).
Additional personnel: Angelo (acoustic & electric guitar); Ethan Johns (guitar, Hammond B-3 organ, percussion).
Recorded at Shangri-La Studios, Malibu, California; Sound City Studios, Van Nuys, California; House Of Blues Studios, Memphis, Tennessee; Ocean Way Studios and GroundStar Studios, Nashville, Tennessee.
Though Kings of Leon hail from the South and boast a collective hirsute quality that would make CCR proud, they are neither Skynyrd-worshipping Southern rock revivalists nor country-tinged roots-rockers. Rather, their raw, shambling sound suggests a cross between the garage rock of the Strokes and White Stripes and the heartland sleaze-rock of Nashville Pussy. In fact, if the aforementioned garage types hadn't loosened up the music industry a bit, it would be hard to imagine a band as down-and-dirty as this foursome getting a major label deal. The songs aren't all blazing stompers; there are the occasional touches of acoustic guitar and piano and even a waltz tempo on one tune, but still in the same pointedly discombobulated spirit as the rockers. A hidden track on the end that sounds like EXILE-era Stones in heroin-country mode offers a hint to the Kings' deeper roots and leaves the option of sonic advancement open for the future.

Though Tennessee's Kings of Leon are a rock band from the south, that doesn't mean they're a Southern Rock band. The Followill brothers Caleb, Jared, and Nathan (along with their cousin Matthew) play a straight-ahead, hard-driving brand of rock & roll that owes more to Crazy Horse and the Rolling Stones than it does to Molly Hatchet. Their debut album, 2003's YOUTH & YOUNG MANHOOD showed them to be an earthier equivalent to garage-rock contemporaries like the White Stripes and the Strokes.