- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
MojoOnly By The Night is best viewed as a transitional record from a band who have quite literally done their growing up in public. [Oct 2008, p.98]
-
Much of Only By the Night is unmistakably the work of a band making music with arenas in mind. Sometimes it's intriguing.
-
This isn’t natural territory for Kings of Leon, and it often shows. At times the band seems content to channel the monumental sweep of U2.
-
Through headphones or computer speakers, Caleb's echoey vocals just don't ring credible. Their Black-Crowes-go-new-wave choruses are exciting enough, but they feel unearned after tiresome, oversung verses.
-
Only by the Night is long on astral, arena-ready largeness, with blippy keyboards, droney guitars and whoa-oh-oh backing vocals.
-
I have enough faith in this band to presume they’ll eventually see Only By the Night for what it is, as a fourth album hiccup that fails to play to their strengths.
-
While their ambition for evolving remains admirable, their apparent failure to understand their own strengths is troubling and undermines the promise they showed on their previous efforts.
-
This is an album which feels like it was made quickly, not because of artists reaching a terminal velocity of creativity, but to take maximum advantage of an audience who may not be there this time next year.
-
Only by The Night will undoubtedly sell bucketloads but there's no escaping the fact that creatively, Kings Of Leon have stalled.
-
Essentially a funhouse mirror of 2007's far superior "Because of the Times," Only by the Night stumbles under the weight of its ambitions by lacking the songs necessary to support them
-
Under The RadarOnly By The Night has exposed itself as the weakest Kings Of Leon album. [Fall 2008, p.76]
-
For the most part the record is a sluggish mess of sweeping guitars and stoner-rock sounds, not unlike what you might hear at a high school talent show.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 154 out of 223
-
Mixed: 29 out of 223
-
Negative: 40 out of 223
-
JamesJul 20, 2009I was a fan of Kings of Leon until this album. It represents the opposite of everything they were built on.
-
Apr 27, 2012
-
TomASep 25, 2009