Sure, they've got good moustaches. But can they play?

Kings of Leon
Youth and Young Manhood

It's totally understandable, completely natural even, to greet these newcomers and their debut LP with a healthy amount of skepticism. After all, Kings of Leon have already been anointed as the Next Big Thing by the British music press (certainly no guarantee of success, longevity or, indeed, quality), while deploying an impressive level of devotion to a rock'n'roll vernacular that was last in style back when the Rolling Stones didn't suck. (See also: The Strokes, though the Kings' musical roadmap is more gravel road than Avenue B). With ages ranging from 16 to 23 and a perfect pre-packaged mythology (three brothers and their first cousin, scions of a family of itinerant Southern Baptist preachers, blah blah blah), this is a band that would be really easy to hate, were it not for the fact that Youth and Young Manhood is pretty much the most unabashedly kick-ass rock debut since the afore-mentioned Strokes' Is This It (and if you don't like that, you've got more problems than I can help you with, hombre).
Like 2003's other mucho-hyped freshman rock entry, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Fever To Tell, Youth and Young Manhood faces an uphill battle against listener expectations and the burden of hype. Unlike Karen O's crew, the Kings of Leon emerge at the top more or less unscathed. A lot of that has to do with the simplicity of the King's formula: part neo-Skynyrd Southern boogie-rock, part Iggy-esque proto punk with a smidgen of Uncle Tupelo's front porch swing. Where Fever to Tell bogs down in art-fag meanderings, Youth and Young Manhood puts the pedal down and keeps it down. Most of the sides on Y.&.Y.M are straight up, windows down road rockers anchored by a steady-as-she-goes rhythm section and guitars that nip at and climb over each other like a pair of feisty Rottweiller pups. No doubt much of the credit for keeping these newbies on track goes to producer Ethan Johns (Ryan Adams, Jayhawks) whose invisible hand seems to keep the whole works from veering sharply into the ditch of bald-faced imitation. In fact, it's vocalist Caleb Followill who comes closest to sinking this ship. The frontman runs tha gamut from mush-mouthed slurs through barstool braggadocio and onward into high-pitched spaz outs that plainly aim to fill the former James Osterberg's "No Fun" era boots (by the time Followill's histrionics on "Trani" fade into a raspy squeal, you can imagine it as a show-closer, with him twitching on stage with a mic cord wrapped around his throat amid screaming wails of gi-tah feedback). It's a good voice, mind you, and suited to the K o L esthetic like PB to jelly, but it's also a reminder that these are a handful of young Southern bucks trying their damndest to make good and sometimes, young fellers, there's such a thing as trying too hard, y'know?
All the same, these days you can't swing a White Stripe without bashing some garage rawk revivalist band. The term itself is now being applied with the same reckless abandon that turned "grunge" into an epithet (George Satayana said that those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it. He did not mention that these same folks all seem to work in the music industry. Or are U.S. presidents. But I digress.). Now, no rational human being could, after listening to Youth and Young Manhood, consign Kings of Leon to the same pit, but rationality is not a hallmark of our discourse today, and that's fine, because this is really a blood and guts record anyway, all ass, gas and grass. It's derivative, sure, but I challenge anyone to name a truly original musical act from the past 20 (fuck, let's make it 50) years. I sure don't know if it will hold up down the road, but I do know this: in uncertain times, a little certainty goes a long way. You can't really go wrong with a meaty slice of rock'n'roll with a side of grits and that's exactly what Kings of Leon serve up here. Now: what's for dessert?