Kings of Leon are turning the clock backwards for album number 10, although this is less an exercise in nostalgia than four musicians taking stock of how far they have travelled. The Nashville band will release ‘O My Beloved’ on November 6 via Love Tap Records, distributed by Virgin Music, with new single ‘My Whole World’ offering the first glimpse of the record.
‘O My Beloved’ is significant for another reason: it is the first Kings of Leon album entirely self-produced by the band. After the broader sound that has characterised much of their later work, the Followills are stripping things back and reconnecting with some of the rawness of their earliest days in Nashville.
That return comes with a very different perspective. Caleb, Nathan, Jared and Matthew Followill are no longer the young band who arrived with ‘Youth & Young Manhood’ in 2003. More than two decades, nine albums and millions of records later, ‘O My Beloved’ looks at family, childhood, gratitude and the seemingly ordinary memories that acquire greater significance with time. Caleb Followill describes the record as an opportunity to appreciate both what the band has built and the people and experiences that got them there.
‘My Whole World’ introduces that more reflective mood. Drawn from memories and emotions that have remained with the band, the single points towards a record less concerned with scale than with letting some of the armour come off. It is an interesting move from a group whose career has taken them from Nashville clubs to festival headline slots and arenas around the world.
There is plenty of history to look back on. Kings of Leon have sold more than 20 million albums and nearly 40 million singles, won four Grammys and built a catalogue that stretches from the wiry Southern rock of their early records through the enormous crossover success of ‘Only by the Night’ and into 2024’s ‘Can We Please Have Fun’. That album was followed by ‘EP #2’ in 2025, their first EP in more than two decades.
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