Their homeland spurns their take on southern rock but Tennessee’s three Followill brothers and their cousin are becoming British stars. They headlined Friday night at Glastonbury, last night they filled Brixton Academy to discomfort and before Christmas, they will play two arena dates.

Last year’s Wembley show suggested their great leap forwards had come too quickly and for all their musicality and moments of genuine wonder they still have work to do. The sound was awful; their subtlety mostly lost and the few words Caleb Followill muttered between songs were as incomprehensible as King Of The Hill’s Boomhauer. Moreover, for all that each song was greeted by the beery audience as a long-lost brother, the Kings’ inability to connect to the adoration meant this was more a recital than a show.

At times they were as Seventies as the lava lamp backdrop that flickered occasionally behind them and, during Crawl it was as if Lynyrd Skynyrd had been reincarnated. Elsewhere there were nods to Neil Young, The Grateful Dead and Tom Petty and if you listened hard enough, you’d hear echoes of Matlock’s Gomez.

Indeed, for ones so immersed in heaviness, Kings Of Leon were surprisingly understated and light on their feet. Their best song, Fans, retained most of its beguiling delicacy, Pistol Of Fire was almost funky and California Waiting rejoiced in its punky majesty. If only the Followills knew what to do with their gifts...