Because Of The Times

Flirtations with big-sky atmospherics can hardly hold these songs together. What sounds like a hodgepodge of Edgy experiments and raised-Zippo nostalgia is just that: a hodgepodge.

So it’s tough to call this one. If it were only the first eight tracks this would probably be the best album I’ve heard in 2007.

It's all certainly a lot more complex, if a little less immediate, than anything they've done before. [May 2007, p.104]

Because Of The Times burns with all the invention and ambition that seemed to have been sucked out of its predecessor. [May 2007, p.108]

While lyrically Kings Of Leon remain underdeveloped, how they've grown musically. [May 2007, p.119]

'Because Of The Times' cements Kings Of Leon as one of the great American bands of our times.

The band doesn't fuss with any sort of rootsy purism, which is why it gets away with retro moves that would sound soft from anybody else.

Because Of The Times is Kings Of Leon's best album yet, their most fully realised and mature work to date.

A highly experimental, willfully difficult curveball that, against all odds, is incredibly listenable and far more noteworthy than their conventional (albeit solid) output to date could have ever hinted at. [#17, p.85]

If you like your Americana raw and passionate, look no further.

Because Of The Times isn't likely to make anyone forget Lynyrd Skynyrd. But it's still one of the most consistently surprising and vibrant rock records since, arguably, Aha Shake Heartbreak.

This LP sounds too close to unfocused jamming. [Apr 2007, p.95]

If less accessible on first hearing than its predecessors, the result is an epic wide-screen movie of a CD and the band's best to date.

However admirable and surprising the band's ambition throughout Because Of The Times may be, not every experiment works so well.

They've honed their sound perfectly, hitting every mark they set and making Because Of The Times kick so much ass that it demands you respect them as new rock royalty. [May 2007, p.152]

Kings of Leon often seem torn between their stadium rawk impulses and their hip underground aspirations.

Not quite a soaring rock masterpiece, but certainly a bold move that achieves a variable degree of success. Because of the Times proves that Kings of Leon have the ability to change move into new territory, as so many of their garage peers from five years ago have failed to do.

Because of the Times is Kings of Leon's turn at maturity, without any of the pretentiousness that customarily surrounds that label.

More muscle than penmanship, more highway than garage, Because the Times rolls like Foghat at the close of Dazed & Confused.

The Kings sound huger, less moonshine-slurry, even more romantic.

This is meat and 'taters rock mixed with the Devil's blood. [#24, p.90]

The best thing, really, that can be said of Because of the Times is that it works the hardest trick: seeming deeply personal and inclusive, but still having an embrace elastic enough to be universally appealing.

"Because of the Times" is a brooder at heart, and much of the material here is some of the Kings' most demanding to date. It's also among their best. [14 Apr 2007]

The need for rock'n'roll bands to declare war on clichés has been evident for ages. But who'd have thought a band in tight jeans and sunglasses would wind up leading the charge?

Because of the Times validates the theory that the Kings of Leon are merely the Eagles in wolf’s clothing (or the Strokes in overalls), being that the album’s collection of tales, focusing solely on hard-living and harder women, are but hokey pulp fictions disguised with mellowed sincerity, played out on mythical dirt roads and overgrown farmhouses.

Kings of Leon have spent much of the past couple of years in potentially soul-sapping support slots on extended US stadium tours by the likes of Bob Dylan, Pearl Jam and, most significantly, U2. But rather than be ground down by that experience, they've used it as the jumping-off point for a bold expansion of their own parameters.

Although it's stylistically diverse, the album feels coherent.

The group have kept their sound surprisingly fresh incorporating some welcome sonic refinements, without making any great creative leap or departure.

Because of the Times... reveals a band growing musically and revealing the requisite growing pains.