Youth & Young Manhood

Already tagged with the unfortunate critical label of "southern-fried Strokes," the full-length debut by the brothers Followill (Nathan, Jared, Caleb) and cousin (Matthew Followill) may well have its roots in their itinerant evangelist father Leon blasting his sons with relentless doses of '70s rock as they traveled the South from one preaching gig to the next. But the way the Kings channel sources as disparate as Led Zeppelin's "That's the Way" into "Joe's Head" or the Who's "Circles" into their ""Molly's Chambers" seems almost subconscious; after a decade of bands trying to reinvent the rock wheel, it's refreshing to hear one content to gleefully pry it loose and send it spinning in their own peculiar directions. As with all the great ones, deconstructing the Kings' sound doesn't get you far: singer/guitarist Caleb perpetually seems to be rolling one too many syllables off a lazy, Southern tongue while his haystack-haired brothers and cousin chug maniacally along like some lost, recently re-tooled '60s garage-psych-rock legend. In the end there's not an ounce of the Strokes' latent pop culture self-consciousness in the Kings' intoxicating sonic haze — just the restless, often bittersweet noise of one of the most original bands to hail from Dixie since R.E.M. — Jerry McCulley