Kings of Leon in San Diego

Kings of Leon

“I think people tend to expect a certain sound from us,” says Kings of Leon’s drummer Nathan Followill, “but on this record, we tried to throw them for a loop.” Indeed, it’s not business as usual on the Nashville-based quartet’s ambitious, eclectic new album Because Of The Times. Where Kings of Leon’s last release, 2005’s Aha Shake Heartbreak, was “a fuzz-encrusted rocket of controlled violence,” as Rolling Stone put it, packed with emphatic two-minute bursts of raunchy guitars, brawny drums, and growled vocals, Because Of The Times finds the Followills (brothers Nathan, Caleb, and Jared, and their first cousin Matthew) opening up, rela...