Band Of Brothers (Aha Shake Heartbreak - Kings of Leon)

Member Name: I Like Blue

Product:	Aha Shake Heartbreak - Kings of Leon
Date:	31/05/05 (1054 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good Music, Strong Vocals, Listen again and again

Disadvantages: The album ends

…and their cousin. After the fair success of their debut album ‘Youth and Young Manhood’ the boys from the deep South, USA, are back with a second album.

The arrival by the Kings Of Leon onto the rock scene went pretty much unnoticed by me to be honest and whilst I was aware they were the newest ’big thing’ I didn’t buy or really listen to their debut album. I think the only 2 songs I heard from that album were ’Molly’s Chambers’ and ’Holy Roller Novocaine’, which I liked but never pursued the interest further than that.

My interest in ‘Aha Shake Heartbreak’ was quite by accident really. You see my 15 year old son is at an age where his music tastes are really starting to form and in fact for the last year or more his music taste has pretty much been of the rock genre ranging from Deep Purple and the like to Nirvana, Foo Fighters, RHCP to bands such as The Vines and The Pixies. Often though he hunts through my collection of CD’s and Vinyl borrows and listens to them too. Sometimes I’ll borrow and listen to some of his collection too and it was on such an occasion recently that I borrowed this album, which was bought for him just a few days earlier by his sister as a gift.

I’ve still got it. I’ve ‘borrowed’ it for a couple of months now despite the fact I’ve saved it to the music library on my PC.

Where ‘Youth And Young Manhood’ was more about the Followill’s hopes and dreams ‘Aha Shake Heartbreak’ is a brief highlight of the band’s experiences in the 18 months or so between the debut album and this one. As the band themselves state this album is about sex, drugs, drinking and fighting. They’ve done the ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ thing and quite refreshingly they realise that actually being in a rock band in the spotlight with all the fame and everything that comes with it isn’t really all that at all in that often there are just as many negatives as there are positives.

The album starts quite powerfully with [1] Slow Night, So Long and, for me, from the start it got me scrambling straight away trying to think who the Kings sound like. The way the band play, especially in this song, is so much like many other rock (indie mainly I suppose) bands yet also like nobody else at all. To be honest it’s like they have successfully taken the best styles from many great bands and fused them into their own style - very effective indeed.

Picking up the tempo a bit the first song makes a good transition to [2] King Of The Rodeo, an almost typical ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ song, full of energy and a pretty catchy chorus too. However, this is where you start to realise that it is becoming a little bit of a challenge to actually understand what Caleb (the lead singer) is singing. This isn’t because he’s a bad singer it’s his southern ‘drawl’ coming through in the lyrics, the way he pronounces some words and the accent they’re sung with. I’ll explain that a bit further later in the review with an example or two. Thankfully though, the album comes with an inner booklet with the lyrics to all the songs so you won’t be lost for long.

Another good transition takes us to [3] Taper Jean Girl, another ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ style song with a hint of punk and a healthy dose of bass guitar to which there is no natural end to the song, no breather, it’s straight into [4] Pistol Of Fire. A good up-tempo song that keeps the mixture of ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ and punk style going. Pistol of Fire is the peak because until now the album has been fast-paced with a good tempo but now it drops like a stone for [5] Milk.

It’s near impossible to convey in a review how dramatic the change in pace is from the previous songs to ’Milk’, you have to hear it to appreciate it. ’Milk’ is extremely potent and is performed in an almost ’unplugged’ style, and this song, probably more than the others on this album, is where Caleb’s ‘gravelly’ and almost growl-like voice is used to best effect.

It’s a close call but for me Milk is my favourite song on this album. With the tempo dropping completely and after being ‘upped’ by the previous songs ‘Milk’ is the definite ‘downer’. Slow and ballad like it is full of emotion and atmosphere; quite dark indeed.

Now, this is where I’ll give you an example of how Caleb’s singing can be hard to understand as I mentioned earlier. The opening line of Milk is ‘Salty leave, salty leave’ which, when Caleb sings it sounds like ‘Soul TV’, then later in the song another line is ‘Kill me, kill me’ which, apart from Caleb dragging out the line for emphasis, when he sings that line it comes out as ‘Coooooler me, killller me’ and then of course his pronunciation of ‘party’ comes out as the classic ‘partay’.

The tempo picks up again for [6] The Bucket, which was the first single from this album and is another part of the reason I borrowed this album from my son. The Bucket was one of those songs that I had stuck in my head, but not the whole song, just a line from the chorus ‘18. Balding. Star’. So, when I borrowed the album from my son this was the first song I listened to.

Now we’re back into the ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ style which continues with [7] Soft and [8] Razz before the tempo drops again to another slow and atmospheric song [9] Day Old Blues. Day Old Blues comes a close second to ‘Milk’ as a favourite song from the album. The beauty of Day Old Blues is that Caleb yodels part of it - yes he yodels. Now, before you go thinking ’what the…?’ I’ll tell you this is another ballad style song and Caleb’s yodelling is done in such a way that it enhances the song and actually he only really yodels the chorus; it is very effective indeed, believe me!

It’s back to ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ for [10] Four Kicks and [11] Velvet Snow before the tempo changes yet again for [12] Rememo, a kind of whiskey drinking sing-a-long song you would probably join in with everyone else during a late-night drinking and singing session down your local with everybody swaying from side to side. Even if you couldn’t remember the words you’d still ’hmmm’ along to it.

On one version of the album that is where it ends but on the other (the version with the picture of a white orchid against a black background) there is a bonus track [13] Where Nobody Knows, which ends the album on a slightly more up-tempo note.

In recent times, the past couple of years most probably, there has been a kind of resurgence of this genre of music. Whilst not always my favourite genre I do tend to listen to quite a few different albums by different bands (usually by borrowing them from my son), however, personally, I find quite a few of them very alike which can tend to make the songs and the bands a little bland.

With Kings of Leon however, and this album in particular, there are, for me, a couple of elements that make them stand head and shoulders over many of their peers. Firstly, the way the band play is so crisp and clean, they are in perfect harmony and in complete sync with Caleb’s vocals. Talking of which, that is the other element which makes this band and album stick out. His singing voice is rather unique, full of character and adds that extra something that makes the songs stick with you and want to hear them again and again.

This album can’t be recommended enough, it’s sublime and seamless pace change from song to song will have you hooked from the start and you’ll feel like, to a small degree, you’ve gone through the ups and downs the band have gone through.

Widely available, stores like Amazon and HMV are currently selling it for £9.99 and £8.99 respectively but if you use a price comparison site like kelkoo then you’ll find the album for as little as £6.87 from dvdplus.co.uk.

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