Kings of Leon are one of those bands that have a dozen good albums but they didn’t find mainstream success until they released ‘Only By The Night’.  This album was quite a change in direction for the band but it is still another fantastic piece of work. I think that what appealed to people about this album was that the themes in it were more relatable for most people than in their previous work. The music was also a bit softer and this offered a wider appeal when compared to the niche market that they appealed to before.

The song I’m going to be reviewing from this album is ‘Be Somebody’, the tenth song on the album. It was never actually released on its own which I think is a shame as it’s a brilliant track. Be Somebody is quite an atmospheric song, very eerie which is quite common for Kings of Leon, with a pretty minimalist guitar, simple bass and drums that just constantly go round and round and round. You get the picture.

The track starts with guitar, simple and panned hard right with only the reverb and delay in the left. Then straight away the rest of the band kicks right in.  The bass is constant and thumping, this one is panned hard left with only slight reverb and delay in the left. The drums are beating and sound almost like an African war tribe.  The second guitar only adds in little bits on occasion which really amplifies the feel of the track.

I’ve always loved the way Kings of Leon sound and I really think that a lot of it is down to the production. This album was produced by Jacquire King, a fitting name! Everything has a nice sound to it, I love the sound of the drums and especially the guitars. The only thing that I wasn’t keen on was the bass. It sounds almost industrial and I’m not too sure it quite fits in with the track, at least not in the verse, however it sounds lovely in the chorus. This song has brilliant dynamic range, I can’t stress this enough, the really haunting verses are probably down to the guitars sounding quite soft, like they’re barely being played and the choruses, oh my! Nice and loud with lots of power. Just how I like it!  The use of reverb and delay is almost perfect as well in this track, it really adds to the atmosphere that is created.

All in all, I love this song and the way it sounds, it definitely deserves a tidy 4 out of 5, the rest of the album is amazing as well so go out there and listen to it in full and not just the singles that you hear on BBC Radio 1.