Kings of Leon 'Only By The Night'

The fourth offering from the Followill brothers find them reconnecting with their southern roots, reaffirming their country origins whilst writing blistering and powerful rock numbers. Here you will find far heavier numbers than they have written to date which sit rather comfortably next to some down-tempo songs. This is a fine edition to their already stunning back catalogue.

Even without a top ten hit before this album, they have comfortably commanded attention at the festival stages based upon their grass root fan-base alone. Despite a number of unfavorable reviews, this album vaults them into stadium-filling greatness. It is full of winning formulas, not quite their magnum opus yet, but still truly great.

Crawl and Sex on Fire are probably the greatest things they have ever produced with a disco-infused rock feel which sounds terrible on paper but is truly magnificent and makes you want to dance and sing along. Up-tempo numbers submerge into slow anthems, epic guitars and big choruses which admittedly can plod along in places, as many have pointed out, but I can actually feel myself at a festival listening to this entire album and not feeling the slightest bit disappointed.

No overproduction here; in fact it’s perfect, great music and if this album is a mere blimp in their pursuit for rock and roll greatness which, let’s face it, what they do the best then this change of direction will stand the test of time as one of the best in their back catalogue.