When you look at the first song, “Zombies Ate My Neighbors“, before you listen to it, you’d probably think “That’s just one of those dumb song titles that have nothing to do with the song.” and consider giving the record back to the chump that gave it to you. On the contrary, the lyrics in the song are actually about a zombie attack, and they somehow manage to not be too corny. The chorus is quite catchy and there’s a slight story to it.

“Velcro” starts off with about five seconds of studio banter that the band thought would be great to hear every time you listen to it. This song is a lot less impressive than the opening track, but it’s the only other song with a really catchy chorus. The lyrical content of this song makes it hard to connect to unless you’re around the age of 16 and regularly listen to this sort of music. It’s not strictly dedicated to that, but it would really help to fit into that category if you want to fully enjoy the song.

The next song is the softest on the EP. “Melody of You” is one of the better semi-acoustic tunes from this genre, and fits well on this point of the EP. There’s and interesting use of stringed instruments, including a somewhat jazzy stand-up bass. Despite being the slowest song in the set, it also ended up being the shortest.

If all of these songs had the lyrics removed, “September Skyline” probably would have sounded the best. The lyrics and vocals aren’t bad, but they distract from the guitar and drum playing. The ending of this song seems too abrupt to be an and to any set of songs, but they only had four songs to work with, and the order was great as is. The drum playing stood out quite a bit for this band. Not like, say, that of Alex Van Halen, but none of the songs had simple beats that tend plague this genre and a lot of modern rock in general.

The songs, starting with “Slow Night, So Long”, were all in that same vibe of Dixie pop-punk, but within the album, there were two acoustic ditties: “Milk” and “Day Old Blues”. A different sound for the band, I was not used to something resembling “MTV Unplugged Featuring Four Brothers from Nashville”, so I breezed through them, trying to find a hook in them but failing to do so. Despite that flaw, Aha Shake Heartbreak makes itself up with a sound that seems more like Lynyrd Skynyrd crashing into a blink-182 concert, complete with Prince’s lyrics about sex. The highlights of the album are “King of the Rodeo”, which serves as a guitar duel between Jared and Caleb Followill, and the swagger-heavy “Taper Jean Girl”, which became the first Kings of Leon song nationally recognized through the 2007 film Disturbia.

The only thing, other than the acoustic ditties, I have to complain about are the repetition of the lyrics. At first, it seems like random mumbling from Caleb, but when taking a look at the lyrics, his mumbling turns into something a little less innocent. Most of the lyrics range from suicide (“The Bucket”) to sex (“Taper Jean Girl”, “Pistol of Fire”, “Velvet Snow”, etc.). Because Caleb Followill is not much of the lyricist type, most of his songs are either amateurish or about what rock music is mostly about. Such familiarity with a topic can make music seem like it is bland lyrically; most songs are about Caleb’s penis (his “PISSTAWL OF FYE-UH”) or having sex with a chick. It can only be compared to the shock that one gets when entering the 18+ fanart section at the Furthia High website. Is constant lyrical human intercourse always a good thing?

I know people are going to get pissed at me because I’m not promoting the Kings of Leon album with “Sex on Fire”, but to be fair, I have not listened to Only by the Night yet. I have listened to the Kings’ first two, yet I don’t know if I want to venture into commercial territory. From my observations I can hear the Kings get progressively more bland every album they do, a result of commercializing and assimilating their sound into the alternative rock mainstream. However, they aren’t the Dixie Coldplay. They’re a throwback to the good old days of Heartland rock and bar bands playing covers horribly. They’re the result of a painful family schism and assimilation into mainstream society. They’re the result of torturing their cousin. The result is quite artistic and original.

I give this album my full approval, as it is a good mixture of songs despite the below-paw acoustic ditties and the constant yiffing of Caleb Followill. This album serves as a blueprint for later albums to come and ultimately led the Kings to gain a minor chart position with “The Bucket”. How “Taper Jean Girl” failed to get on astounds me, but enough of that. The Kings of Leon thank this album for mainstreaming them into the alternative rock scene and I do too. I should have bought this album when I first heard it because it would stay with me due to the hooks. I wouldn’t think too heavily of the sexual entendres, though; I wasn’t too aware of colloquial terms for “penis” back then.

When I first heard this album I was blasted with the speedy power chords of “Chachi”, and before the vocals started I thought I had put on the wrong album, but once Tom started screaming into the microphone I understood what I was in for. Yes kids, much like “Static Prevails”, Tom Linton provides vocals on 10 of the 11 tracks here.

“Patches” is the second track, and it slows things down a bit, not much, but some. It has a nice little melody, slower guitar, and poetic lyrics, but speedy bass and drums to keep their punky edge as obvious as possible.

“Amphibious” is the third track, and the first one so far to really sound like a straight up punk rock song, with half-assed lyrics and very little emotion, but it sounds like a lot of fun to play as a band, so i can’t blame them for putting it on the record.

“Splat out of Luck”, track four, more punk rock. Really fast 4/4 palm mutes and fast drums, but lots of fun nonetheless.

“House Arrest” shows us a self loathing side of Tom, but also shows us that he’s a bad ass guitar player. There are riffs in this song that show a side of this band the album had yet to introduce, begging you to listen on.

“Usery” is Jim Adkins’ first and only song on this record, and sadly it’s easily ignorable. It has the same speed, sound, and drum patterns as previous songs on the record and kinda goes in one ear and out the other.

“Wednesday” here’s a tricky little devil of a song. It starts out as more speedy punk that is fun but unabsorbent to the memory, with a bitchin’ little 1 string solo reminiscent of Leatherface. Then, about a minute or so in, it breaks down into beautiful arpeggios and a violin arrangement that makes you stop and listen, this lasts for only a matter of about 10 seconds and a dash of vocals before it picks right back up to moshing speed, for one big abrupt ending.

“Crooked” features sad lyrics over happy music, slower and poppier than most of the album, with a more indie rock edge, it also has a nice little break down where the drummer stops playing, leaving us with a neat little arpeggio played over a groovy bass line, probably the best part of the song. is it just me or is this album getting slower? Not by much, theres still lots of energy but these last songs seem to be reverse-crescendos if I may invent a term.

“Reason 346″ has a sound that I can’t pin point, it sounds as if they layered an acoustic guitar track over this song but buried it back in the mix a bit. It may be that one guitar player is just playing through a clean channel with an acoustic-esque tone. This song is still full of energy but has a pretty drum and bass break down that leads into more pretty arpeggios and is probably the one song on the album most J.E.W. fans can relate to, it sounds a lot like the style they would become known for.

“Scientific” opens up with a very dirty and diminished chord progression, that leads in to some jazzy drums, very different from anything this album has touched on elsewhere, but its one hell of a song. The band really shows off their skills in this one, the intro being almost three minutes long before the vocals kick in, but then their drummer wants to be a punk again and everything gets fast. They keep up with the slow fast thing for a grand total of seven minutes, making this the longest song on the record, also one of the best guitar solos on the record, if not the best.

“Cars” is a nice little closer reminding you that the band, once again, really wants to be punk. With fun lyrics, probably the catchiest song on the record, I find it stuck in my head a lot, even months after listening to the record. After the song is over we get a fun little bit of studio banter where Jim and Tom play Van Halen riffs and laugh with each other.

All in all it is a very fun record, but there is a lot of nonsense and fun stuffed in it. If i had to rate it, it would be a 6/10, but I feel I enjoy it much more than the rating I give.

I can’t see a real reason why this album was never re-printed, it’s a great listen for fans of the band, but if your only understanding of this band are from records like Bleed American, Futures, or Chase This Light, this is probably not the album for you. You have to have a real deep seeded love of early 90s pop punk to appreciate this one, if not already a fan of the group. I can even be reminded of acts like Squirtgun, Screeching Weasel, and early (Kerplunk era) Green Day when I listen to this album, but it is still obviously Jimmy, just… faster.