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| 6/10 |
8 Years ago, I reviewed Only By The Night, the third studio album by KOL. At the time I was admittedly excited by the prospect of a new album, as the release preceding it "Because of the Times" when on to become one of my most played albums of that time.
For me the album struck the optimal balance of southern tinged mid tempo belters and huge arena rock anthems. It felt like around the corner, there might be a major stylistic shift in the group, only by the night turned out to be underwhelming.
The album started out very promising, with the use of synths on the first two tracks I thought would be a good feature, and I thought they might be transitioning into something fresh and different.
The third song, which was the gigantic hit "Sex on Fire" dropped straight after these two tracks, and after that the whole album lost it's way. We had "Use Somebody" "Revelry" amongst others. It was rock by numbers, banal and overused cliches thrown around in the lyrics and bland instrumentation.
Although KOL songs have never been renowned for their lyricism, Only By The Night's lyrics had gotten worse. The irony of this was, with each release they got better and better as a band musically, but the quality of the lyrics just kept on declining.
I noted in that review that I believed they would continue to deliver consistent and satisfying songs, as they had on the three albums previous to that. I really believed that at the time. But how wrong I was.
So now in 2016, KOL deliver WALLS. For the best part of a decade, after their breakthrough success, everything they touched wreaked of mediocrity, from their nondescript "Come Around Sundown" which was completely devoid of memorable songs, to 2013's "Mechanical Bull", which pretty much went further down the abyss.
It really is no wonder that critics and fans alike talk about complacency when they talk about KOL. This is a band that were (maybe unfairly) hailed as the southern U2 8 years ago. They had mainstream success, and then seemed to not really embrace it, but become passengers within that realm. Who knows whether they have ever become comfortable with it, articles and interviews will tell you they aren't, but they aren't showing any signs through their music that they want to resist against it.
The opener "Waste A Moment", starts with minimal fuss, builds to a mid tempo crescendo over a couple of minutes, really an ok way to start the album off, considering nothing really goes beyond the tempo of this one, it's probably the most upbeat song on here.
There's no absence of awful lyrics on this one too. Here's the OPENING two lines of the album:
All the way from Waco to WE-HO with a rabbit on her chain
Drove a little slick car to tend bar with the static on her brain
And straight away, about 15 seconds in I am scratching my head. There's a lot more though.
The second track "Reverend" is the most endearing track on Walls, the story of a country singer who was tragically shot in 1989. When KOL go into story song mode, I have to say it's refreshing to hear. Their usual fare of awkward cliches about relationships always get on my nerves, and this makes for an interesting take, not only of their sound, but of Americana itself.
"Around the World" has a great guitar hook, but never has enough vocal capacity from Caleb to hold it together. The chorus is also unmemorable.
"Over" is a song about heartbreak, in the most generic sense, I wouldn't mind so much if I could hear some conviction in the singing. But more often than not, Caleb seems to bring about emotion, like it's nothing he's experienced since 2002. It's just over the top sentimentality than diminishes the song quality. It happens on a few tracks on WALLS.
When we get to "Muchacho", KOL have pretty much dealt all their cards out, nothing really gets worse or improves from here on in, but we do have our first WHAT THE FUCK moment on here. This track actually incorporates these 1970 MOR calypso beats over some slide guitar that sounds like something off an early Ry Cooder album, then when the beat drops in, it's in this waltz step timing, which is just bizarre.
"Conversation Piece", gets back to the sanitary boring vibe of the album, with another lacklustre vocal performance and banal instrumentation.
By the time we get to WALLS, the title track and closer of the album, there's isn't really much left to say at this point.
It's a competent album by an extremely successful rock band. It's no gamechanger, surprises are kept to a minimum, there's no artistic growth, musically or lyrically.
I hope this is just an era of stagnation for KOL. Because honestly they are capable of so much more. Sure they were never the greatest the band in the world. But when you can consider this is the same band that made songs like "Molly's Chambers" and "Charmer", at least back then they gave it some gusto, now it seems WALLS is a conscious effort just to barely exist. They can be seen on the periphery, but they are no longer at the forefront of every one's mind.
Callan Cummings
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