Kings Of Leon: Only By The Night Die Version auf Vinyl 2LP in Standard- Auflage. Diese besondere Auflage wurde veröffentlicht in Europa im Verlag RCA In Zusammenarbeit mit Sony Music und Legacy am 14. August 2015.

"Kings Of Leon's success story is truly unprecedented: after brothers Nathan, Caleb and Jared Followill, along with their cousin Matthew Followill, survived the insane (British) hype surrounding their debut album "Youth & Young Manhood" in 2003 almost unscathed, the quartet has managed to not only retain the favour of music critics and the crowd over the years, but also steadily improve their chart results with each successive album. "Only By The Night" is now the title of Kings Of Leon's fourth LP, which was recorded in collaboration with longtime producer Angelo Patraglia and Nashville-based producer and engineer Jacquire King (who previously mixed "Aha Shake Heartbreak"). The first single from the new album is called Sex On Fire. Caleb Followill comments, "There has always been a sexual element in our music. When Kings Of Leon released their third album 'Because Of The Times' in April 2007, US magazine Entertainment Weekly gave it an unqualified 'outstanding achievement' rating and (US) Rolling Stone even asked: 'How good can Kings Of Leon still be? And indeed, the release of the follow-up to their thrilling debut album 'Youth And Young Manhood' (2003) and its successor 'Aha Shake Heartbreak' (2005) proved to be a pivotal achievement that changed everything for the band. The long-playing record became a huge success for the Followills (brothers Caleb, Nathan and Jared, born in Tennessee, and cousin Matthew) worldwide. In the U.S., the quartet sold out the famed Radio City Music Hall in New York and the Greek Theatre in Hollywood. In the UK, they recently headlined the legendary Glastonbury Festival and also performed at Ireland's Oxygen Festival. Twenty thousand tickets for their upcoming concert at London's 02 Arena, the site of this year's Led Zeppelin reunion concert, sold out in less than an hour. The quartet's increased popularity was also reflected in the charts: while the first album only just climbed into the Top 50 of the German album chart and the Top 100 of the US chart, Kings Of Leon reached the Top 30 in their homeland for the first time with their third album, and in Germany "Because Of The Times" sensationally came in at number 32. Even in the UK, where the music of the family-run business, heavily influenced by blues, country, southern and garage rock, has always been by far the most popular (and the band already had a good half-dozen Top 30 hits to their name), the two Top 3 placements with their first two albums could even be boosted: "Because Of The Times" shot from zero to number one in the UK charts as soon as it was released. After critics described "Because Of The Times" as "the work of a band at the peak of their creative powers", we can only wonder what vocabulary will come out of their fountain pens when we hear "Only By The Night", which will be released on 19 September 2008. The album picks up right where "Because Of The Times" left off, and takes the band a big step further on their unwavering journey to becoming one of the best rock bands of all time. "After three records and five years on the road, we knew exactly what we were capable of," says drummer Nathan, "so we just had to go with our gut. But we also wanted to take our music to the next level. You always want the next record to be better than the last. "It never happens that we make a record and don't try to top the last one," adds frontman and songwriter Caleb, and they did: With great melodies, brilliant guitar sounds and razor-sharp grooves, Kings Of Leon delivers on all promises with "Only By The Night" and lives up to the expectations the band has raised among fans and pundits alike throughout their career so far. "Only By The Night" is pure heart from the first to the last second, from the bleak atmosphere of the opening track "Closer" (based on Caleb's story of a vampire in love) to the emotional charge of the closing ballad "Cold Desert" ("a song about a man at the end of his rope, but rising again under his own power"). Album highlights include the relentlessly roaring first single "Sex On Fire" ("There's always been a 'sexual element' in our music. So I figured this time I'd put it all in one song and for the rest of the album the subject wouldn't be an issue," Caleb jokes), the driving "Crawl" (a song about relationships of all kinds and why you take them for granted) and the raucous "Use Somebody," which Caleb wrote on tour when he was feeling lonely. "It's about being away from home," he explains. Then there's the euphoric "Manhattan," which is equal parts dance/hedonism and Native American struggle for survival. "Manhattan is a word from the Native American language that means 'island of many hills,'" explains Caled, whose lineage traces back to that population. In addition, "Only By The Night" features the urgent, energetic "Notion," in which the singer takes on anyone who dares to say anything against anyone in the band. Caleb's sense of distance is not surprising - the band is made up entirely of relatives. This family atmosphere also determined the way of recording: while working on "Only By The Night", Kings Of Leon returned to Blackbird Studio in Nashville in April 2008, where they worked on the songs with their longtime producer Angel Petraglia and local producer and engineer Jacquire King, who had previously mixed "Aha Shake Heartbreak". "Angelo makes sure it has a fun and youthful vibe," says Nathan. "He and Jacquire were cool enough to tell us when to stop playing 'Wall Ball' and to take it a little more seriously instead of being extremely strict and intimidating. That basically took the pressure off us." Petraglia and King also encouraged the Followills to continue the experimental course the band had taken with "Because Of The Times." The musicians were to be given the freedom to try out all their ideas. "We were able to really lean into it and be a lot more playful with the production," Caleb explains. "We also wanted to prove something to each other. Plus, during recording we needed to be able to kick ass, have a few drinks and relax." "You can hear in the music that we were feeling good," adds Nathan. "To my ears, the album sounds like Kings Of Leon are back, not just as a band, but as friends," Caleb finds. "Every night after recording we'd go to the bar together, sit around and talk about what we were going to do the next day instead of splitting up and going home separately. It was a very family atmosphere. Hence the title of the album. It's also a reference to an Edgar Allan Poe poem and it's five syllables - like all our album titles." Most of the lyrics and melodies for Only By The Night were written by Caleb during the time off he had to take after shoulder surgery. "I feel like the painkillers inspired him a bit more than he realised," smiles Nathan. "He played us a song once and we asked him, "When did you write this?" And he said, "I don't even remember writing it. I woke up with an empty wine bottle next to me and an open 'songbook' with these words." Caleb adds: "The pills make you feel good. I think a lot of good songs came out of that and the fact that I was able to open up more." The experience of performing in large concert arenas, both on his own 'Because Of The Times' tour and as an opening act for U2 and Bob Dylan (2005) and Pearl Jam (2006 and 2008), was also a big influence. "We wanted songs that would sound good in a 15,000-person venue, but at the same time be so intimate that they would work at a club gig in front of 300 kids," says Nathan. There's no doubt about it: the Followills realised that it was time to realise their own ambitions and that they also had the skills to realise those goals. The deeply felt pain and vulnerability in Caleb's vocals on "Only By The Night" is more palpable than ever. "I knew it was a risk to go into the studio, to go completely outside of myself and sing the songs the way I actually know how to; the way I used to sing when I was younger," he says. "I held back singing for a long time because I was nervous about the idea that people would listen to my lyrics and think I wasn't intelligent because I was from Tennessee, and then beat me up for it. That's why I sang the way I sang. But when it came to the new album, I knew the songs we were playing were too beautiful to mess up. "Eventually we got to the point where we realized that we were either going to go down in music history as the band that put out three full-length albums, or the band that was smart enough to realize that there aren't many bands that put out four albums." So we decided to take advantage of that," says Nathan. "Because let's face it, we were pretty lousy at painting facades - and that would still be our job today if we weren't making music."

Album Genres übergreifend Rock, Indie-Rock und Southern Rock. 180g Vinyl.