Come Around Sundown (On I-75)

AD has this belief: Every road has a soundtrack. It changes & grows and is dependent, sometimes, on both the weather and the time of day. You'll often hear her say, "This song reminds me of 1-10, going through Mississippi & Louisiana" or "Definitely a good A1A song!" When first listening to the new Kings of Leon album it was no different.

Come Around Sundown has a highway & a time of day. Just like the hills & mountains that I-75 South carries you over, the album has peaks & valleys. Sundown isn't for sunny weekend trips in August & definitely not the calming music you need in icy January at 7 in the morning on your way to work. No. Come Around Sundown is June at 3 a.m., with patches of orange fog so thick you can't see the semi's break lights just in front of you. Basically, it's two parts a relaxing drive, hopeful of reaching a much better destination, and one part awakening. Granted, it's not the stuff AD has spent hours bouncing around in her room to (Most notably: Four Kicks from Aha Shake Heartbreak), but it'll keep you from dozing on that long drive southbound.

And this album is definitely most appropriate going south & heading "home." Whether it's home to Nashville, where the Kings hail from or, in AD's case, home to Florida. Come Around Sundown is constant propulsion toward somewhere warmer, more fun and better.

Of course, none of this seems to relate to what everyone really wants to know. AD knows what you really care about and it's not that she wishes this album had been out for her trip down to Bonnaroo. She knows you're curious of how it holds up to their previous albums Does it sound like their last album, that many of their fans described as "too commercial?" Or does it sound like their "old stuff?" Audiodaughter's Audiodad would look at you, blink & say, "No." (But he's really snarky & likes to yank people's chains.) Audiodaughter, though, says, "...No?" Come Around Sundown is a great album. It's different-And it's great. Does it sound like Only By Night? No. (All the bitter hipsters can breath again.) But it doesn't sound like Youth & Young Manhood, either. And, honestly, why should it? AD is not the same person as she was in 2003-Why should she expect the boys from Kings of Leon to be the same, either? But it's still a rockin' fun album. It's at least a few miles down the road, a little bit closer to where they started and a little bit closer to home.

Moral of the story: AD likes it. It's new, good & different. And, if you're heading south on I-75 to escape whatever plagues you up north: Take this with you, and pop it in...you know, around sundown. (Or around sun up...just so long as it's still dark.) That's all she's got for you.