Youth & Young Manhood

...Nashville's Kings shake up [Southern rock's] rural tendencies with the clamor of garage rock, mixing compact chords, frantic leads, and bashing drums with frontman Caleb Followill's drawl..." - Rating: B+ Entertainment Weekly (8/22-29/03, p.132)

...With unlikely injections of Wet Willie and lyrical stories told in a drawled yell....[The Kings] were weaned on the car radio, grocery-store rock mags and hours sitting inside hot-ass laundromats... Magnet (9/03, p.105)

3 stars out of 5 - "...Pedal steel guitars beckon, suggesting that the Kings of Leon are more than the right band at the right time... Mojo (9/03, p.104)

Ranked #7 in NME's "50 Albums Of 2003" - "...a modern benchmark for all debut albums. NME (20/12/03, p.60)

4 stars out of 5 - "...The thrill is in the groove. Some of the time that means jacked-up garage punk...but the Kings are also a Southern rhythm section to the core... Rolling Stone (9/4/03, p.138)

...[Kings of Leon] bash and pop like they've been rock stars for years....drifts with the sort of slack backwoods passion Dylan found in Nashville skylines and the Stones saw in wild horses..." - Grade: B+ Spin (8/03, pp.111-2)

5 stars out of 5 - "...The kind of life-affirming, slack-strung Gibson SG, four-to-the-floor sonic blitz that makes you want to chain-smoke full-strength Chesterfields chased with lids of Hawaiian while swigging a court of Jim by the neck... Uncut (8/03, p.110)