Lesser men than the Kings of Leon might follow up an arena-rock blockbuster like 2008's Only by the Night with a scrappy bid for street cred — something akin to the horny garage rock of their early days, perhaps. But the Followill boys have as much reverence for street cred as they do for wheat beer and William Tecumseh Sherman. The first single from their forthcoming fifth album is a rough beast that loads up on atmospherics without scrimping on ass-shaking potential or big, soulful ache. Caleb Followill dials up his bleary, ragged voice to Springsteen-level, growling about baptism and not forgetting your roots over a space-mountain jam that suggests the Allman Brothers produced by Brian Eno. A gospel swell appears toward the end of the song, upping the Jesus power. But as with everything the Kings of Leon do, the hot grind of the groove suggests that true redemption lingers in darker quarters.

Photos: Kings of Leon's Family Album

“V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.”

Quite a few musicians have utilized initials for song titles -- Michael Jackson's "P.Y.T.," Abba's "S.O.S.," Donald Fagen's "I.G.Y.," etc. But the more curiously initialed tune has to be "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.," short for "Voyage to the Land of the Freeze-Dried Godzilla Farts." Fishbone's original guitarist, Kendall Jones, explained to Rolling Stone, "When Norwood [Fisher] wrote it, he introduced it to the band saying, 'Man, I've been hearing about all these Nazi right-wing groups on the news saying the Holocaust was staged. So what if America said it never dropped two atom bombs on Japan, that it was actually Godzilla popping a couple off?' Only Norwood would come up with something that out." The same year "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F." was released, the film Godzilla 1985 appeared in North America.