Kings of Leon "Pyro" Music Video Review

Kings of Leon "Pyro"

Music Video Review

By our guest blogger, Nick Hanover

Given their reputation, it's a bit odd to be taking advice on the dangers of alcohol from Kings of Leon. Not that their latest video clip "Pyro" is devoted exclusively to showing what alcoholism looks like, but it's hard not to view the bulk of its characters as anything other than warnings.

While the Kings of Leon are playing unnoticed in the corner of what is truly the world's most depressing bar, we watch some hapless young man enter this den of sadness and try to do good. He helps the old man stumbling out front, he glances at the guy attached to an oxygen tank trying to grasp his drink, and then he gets his ass handed to him when he interferes in a quarrel that seems to be heading for domestic abuse territory. While Jimmy Stewart Jr. is getting pummeled, the bar carries on; a couple who look like they were meant to show up for the latest Todd Solondz film and landed in this video instead awkwardly mingle in one corner and on the bar's lone, pitiful stage is a belly dancer. Or stripper. It could go either way.

Every table in this anonymous bar would appear to be a gigantic red flag. But who is the red flag for? Our resident do-gooder doesn't seem to be its intended target and he's too busy getting destroyed to notice anyway. Surely the folks in the bar aren't the intended target since they've probably been seeing these warning signs for as long as they've been drinking. Which leaves us, the viewer.

Which, of course, brings us back to my original point--can you really take notes on the dangers of alcohol from a group who have made it their mission to bring rock back to its roots of excess? And what does it say about me when the video's ending, which finds the good members of the bar floating off into the skies, only left me thinking--if the Kings of Leon couldn't stand pigeons pooping on them, they're in real trouble now.

View the video below. Thoughts?