Kings of Leon frontman Caleb Followill is an arena-rock idealist, a firm believer in the undying power of setting up shop at the 50-yard line of rock & roll expectations and doing very brisk business. “Like in a mainstream melody / Oh, I want to take you in!” he told us on the Kings’ last album, 2016’s Walls, a subtle come-on that was a pretty fair assessment of why his band’s music hit home with millions.
So, what do these Tennessee titans do in times like these, when there aren’t any arenas to be rocked? In some ways, the band’s eighth album is an arena rock of the mind, tempering the strapping anthemics of hits like “Sex on Fire” and “Use Somebody” for songs that stretch out en route to arriving at a serene kind of swagger.
Followill, brothers Nathan and Jared, and cousin Matthew are still as sexily en fuego as ever. The lead single, “Bandit,” lunges and soars with rippling guitar leads cascading across some of the dirtiest riffs the band has put on a record since the New South-meets-neo-Strokes garage moves of its first two albums, Youth & Young Manhood and Aha Shake Heartbreak, in the early 2000s. “Golden Restless Age” is low-slung and sleek, piling on slashing, intersecting guitars before lifting off into a golden restless chorus. And the crosscutting punk riffs on “Echoing” are downright violent.
But if you’re looking for the woo-woo payoffs the Kings do so well, this record might surprise you. Even at their most sweeping, these songs brood and meander a bit, often in interesting directions. Album opener “When You See Yourself, Are You Far Away” is all tension and no release, its gorgeous guitar arpeggios and martial groove leading to the epiphany: “The pleasures of this life I’m told, will spit you out in the middle of the road.” On “100,000 People,” Followill sings about love as a defense against today’s bleakness over a slow, soft-focused track that suggests a tough, Southern-steeped Coldplay. With its tight soul bass line, “Stormy Weather” feels like it might turn into a manly soul stomp, but instead, it pensively shimmies into the middle distance as Followill plays the love man in distress.
Throughout, producer Markus Dravs (Coldplay, Mumford & Sons) gives everything a graceful sheen, whether on the soft-rock romance “Claire & Eddie” or the moody “Supermarket,” with its molten goth bass line and lyrics that start as an invite to chill and end as a dream of getting clean and “whole again.”
Turns out these guys can revel in ambiguity just as fully as they once reveled in their youth and young manhood.
ALBUM REVIEWS
Canadian duo Softcult name their stunning first album after the well known Alexander Den Heijer line “When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.” That belief in brave transformation and choosing something healthier runs through everything Mercedes and Phoenix Arn Horn do. The twin sisters know that idea intimately after spending over ten years in pop rock outfit Courage My Love, before stepping away in 2020 when major label life began to feel too restrictive to survive creatively.
Softcult emerged soon after in 2021 with ‘Another Bish’, a sharp edged dream pop statement that made it clear they would not be boxed in. A run of four gritty EPs followed, steeped in Riot Grrrl spirit, alongside hand assembled zines, an intensely loyal online following and high profile support slots with Muse and Incubus. Each move has helped build a carefully protected DIY universe where honesty and release come first.
The sisters have never sounded more grounded or self assured than they do on their self produced debut ‘When A Flower Doesn’t Grow’. The album loosely traces the process of escaping systems of abuse, control and expectation, opening with the weightless ‘Intro’. From there, the grimy surge of ‘Pill To Swallow’ finds Mercedes confronting how bleak the world can feel in 2026 with the line “no more promises of better days”, while still choosing resilience over surrender.
‘When A Flower Doesn’t Grow’ is packed with songs that run on pure fury. ‘Hurt Me’ erupts as a blistering release that recalls Nirvana at their most savage, while ‘Tired!’ barrels forward as a no nonsense punk blast aimed at suffocating pressures, with Mercedes biting back “tired of the expectations, tired of your explanations.” Elsewhere, the hazy drive of ‘Naïve’ and the deceptively bright ‘Queen Of Nothing’ bristle with restrained anger, and the charging ‘16/25’ pulls no punches when calling out predatory behaviour. ‘She Said, He Said’ cuts just as sharply, its spoken word delivery flipping between mockery and menace to deepen the band’s guitar led resistance.
Softcult’s debut feels like a natural step forward from their spiky punk roots while also opening doors to new sounds. The loud soft swing of ‘Not Sorry’ bursts with relief and joy, marking the most carefree moment they have ever put on record. At the other end, closing track ‘When A Flower Doesn’t Go’ strips everything back, blending acoustic folk with scorched post rock textures. The duo sound at ease moving between these poles, but it is the fragile hush of ‘I Held You Like Glass’ that lands hardest, leaving room for vulnerability and quiet heartbreak to linger.
