Oct 2004

Having released a debut album that you can safely say was well received. Kings Of Leon have their work cut out to produce a suitable follow-up. Thankfully their sophomore effort, the strangely titled ‘A-Ha Shake Heartbreak’, is more than a match for its illustrious predecessor. Fast paced, lyrically shocking and, rather surprisingly, with added yodelling, ‘A Ha Shake Heartbreak’, is a shoe-in for one of the best albums of 2004.

“…one of the best debut albums of the last ten years…” NME

“…consolidated their status as perhaps the finest American band of this decade…” The Times

• The Times - "Perhaps the finest American band of the decade."Mojo - "...outstanding...makes The Strokes sound like they're the ones who need to keep up."NME - "Pisses all over YOUTH AND YOUNG MANHOOD - Hallelujah."
• Kerrang (30/10/04, p.46) - 4 (out of 5) - "...one which will continue to please long after other, more instantaneous albums have withered and died"
  Mojo - 4 (out of 5) - "Outstanding."

This is the second album from Southern rock outfit Kings Of Leon. Produced by Ethan Johns (Ryan Adams, Emmylou Harris, Rufus Wainwright) the album continues with the band's mix of garage and southern rock. 'Aha Shake Heartbreak' also features 'The Bucket' the first single to be taken from the album.

Kings of Leon's blend of bluesy raunch, countrified inflections, streamlined Strokes-like guitar jams, sleepy psychedelia, and post-punk stylings is a fresh, yet somehow familiar, cocktail. AHA SHAKE HEARTBREAK, the band's sophomore effort, follows closely on the heels of the honky-tonk rock of their debut, but it pushes the whole even further into unexpected territory. While "Pistol of Fire" cooks like John Lee Hooker with extra backbeat and a side of beans, other tracks on HEARTBREAK mix classic-rock boogie ("Four Kicks"), swagger and desperate yowls ("The Bucket"), and hillbilly yodels ("Day Old Blues") into an engaging indie aesthetic.
As if Kings of Leon's keen songwriting, stylistic amalgam, and gutsy attack weren't enough, there is the utterly unique singing of Caleb Followill, who usually sounds as though he is heavily intoxicated or has just woken up from a nap. Followill's lazy, idiosyncratic phrasing and intonation admirably take Kings of Leon out of the realm of potentially similar bands, with singers who are content to yelp and imitate. AHA SHAKE HEARTBREAK rocks, rolls over, dreams, and gets up with a pain in its heart--a process that merits numerous listens.

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.