Kings of Leon

Best I could tell from months of listening without a lyric sheet -- thank you, Internet -- this second disc from the kin of itinerant evangelist Leon Followill had something (OK, everything) to do with fuckin'. You could hear it in singer Caleb Followill's delivery, the greasy whine of the horny sumbitch looking to unzip some underage trou before she got wise or her daddy did. You could hear it in Matthew Followill's guitar, the fuzzy, guttural roar that usually emanates from rural strip joints seen only in bad 1970s movies. Turns out the lyric sheet provides ample evidence that, yup, the whole band of brothers has a hard-on: for absolutely wasted 17-year-olds, for that taper-jean girl with a motel face, for a chick who'll bartend your party, for a woman who'll let your perfect nipple show, for a giggling virgin. It's Southern rock only because it takes place below the belt -- kind of like Exile on Main Street if it stopped playing after "Rocks Off," "Rip This Joint" and "Shake Your Hips." Actually, Heartbreak bests the Kings' first, Youth and Young Manhood, mainly because it sounds less like down-home Strokes and more like down-home Clash sharing a double bill with Gang of Four or Magazine or Wire or Stooges or something else done to death till it was reborn in the hands of these children of gawd.