Kings of Leon, Can We Please Have Fun, review: a few raucous rock anthems, but not enough fun

Kings of Leon, Can We Please Have Fun ★★★☆☆

Awkwardly missing a question mark, there is something plaintive about the title of the Kings of Leon’s ninth album: Can We Please Have Fun. The family rock band look rather gormless on the cover, like a group of overgrown kids on best behaviour at a family function, waiting for permission from a stern adult to cut loose.

To be fair, they’ve had it a bit of a rough of late. Their previous album, 2021’s overly smooth When You See Yourself, saw them losing critical and commercial ground, only reaching number 11 in the US charts (although it gave them their sixth consecutive number one in the UK, where they remain apparently impervious to lukewarm reviews). Their record company, RCA, decided not to renew their contract. The same year, they cancelled concerts when Betty Ann Murphy, mother of three members, suddenly died.

It is easy to understand why brothers Caleb (vocals and guitar), Jared (bass) and Matthew (lead guitar) and drumming cousin Nathan Followill might be eager to escape the pressure in the recording studio, with an avowed aim to stir up some of the energy and high spirits of more innocent early years, when they spearheaded a noughties rock revival alongside the Strokes and White Stripes.

And it does sound like they had fun making it. British producer Kid Harpoon (aka Thomas Hull) is at the controls, fresh from world-conquering exploits with Harry Styles, ensuring the rhythm section hits hard, the ringing guitars lines echo and twist into the infinite dimensions of U2’s the Edge, while frontman Caleb sings as if his life depends upon it, his voice rising from raw Southern croon to wild rocking shriek. There is a flowing sense of melody and dreamy atmosphere to mid-tempo songs (Actual Daydream, Nowhere to Run, Don’t Stop the Bleeding, Ease Me On) and a fistful of thrillingly raucous rockers (Nothing to Do, Hesitation Generation). Mustang, in particular, evokes the uplifting energy of their greatest hit, Sex On Fire, albeit with an even more cryptically elusive lyric: “Are you a mustang or a kitty / What are you all about?” I honestly don’t know the answer to that, and I am not entirely convinced lyric writer Caleb does either.

Rock is littered with terrible lyricists, but there is a difference between, say, Noel Gallagher’s catchily inscrutable phrasemaking and just singing the first thing that comes into your head. The Kings frontman favours non-sequiturs (“Single cab / Nightshift / Dead stiff / Upper lip / Nerd alert / Buzzkill / Honeybee / Gotta oil spill” is the outro to Rainbow Ball) and references so personal they might as well be meaningless. “Sperrys on the line / He’s looking for directions,” he sings on Nothing To Do, but we never hear more about the mysterious Sperry, as we move on to “the kid is getting tall / He’s running up the wall”. Caleb has described it as a song about Artificial Intelligence but it’s so random it may as well have been composed by Chat GPT. So by all means have fun. But maybe next time make more of an effort too? Neil McCormick

Best songs of the week

By Poppie Platt

Beabadoobee, Take a Bite 
Gen Z’s favourite bedroom-pop star sticks to the hazy introspection and dreamlike vocals that have made her name. Steered by peerless producer Rick Rubin (Metallica, Weezer, Rage Against the Machine, the Chicks), the 23-year-old Brit sings about finding comfort in chaos.

CMAT, Aw, Shoot!
Brit and Ivor Novello-award nominated, a sell-out tour in full swing… the flame-haired Irish country-pop sensation takes inspiration from a trip to Paris (and “drinking three bottles of wine a day”) to deliver another Gaelic spin on Nashville ruminations on romance and modern life.

Post Malone and Morgan Wallen, I Had Some Help
Rapper-turned-country’s (prospective) golden boy Post Malone and the genre’s biggest-selling modern star Morgan Wallen team up for a single – first performed in full at California’s Stagecoach festival a fortnight ago – about the devastating effect booze and partying have on a dying relationship.

Saloon Dion, Struck
This up-and-coming Bristol indie band lean into Britpop-aesthetics and sounds with a playful wink; their latest track, Struck, is less Celine Dion (get the name?) and a whole lot more Gallagher brothers. Vocalist Dave Sturgess swaggers and snarls through a chorus centred on regret and trying to face up to past mistakes: “All the good things I have done / Fade away”.