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Like many big-sounding albums, Only by the Night is a polarizing piece of work, one that targets new fans at the expense of those who wish Kings of Leon had never shaved their beards or discovered post-'70s rock.
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The four players are able to design the tracks in architectural detail, each part locking into the rest with unerring precission, and this tautness keeps the album from sagging through its most challenging stretch. [Oct 2008, p.78]
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Q MagazineKings of Leon needed to make a very specific sounding type of album in order to seize their moment, and that they have done, entirely successfully. [Oct 2008, p.134]
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Like their last, Only By The Night is front-loaded with world-beaters but then gradually ebbs back to more interchangeable moments. More than ever its strengths, when it succeeds, later become its weaknesses. It tries a mite too hard.
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It's clear they're ditching the indie legitimacy for the stadium-packing, lighter-waving crowd. Thankfully, it's a fully earnest aesthetic, and the record showcases a variety of songs without being crippled by the indulgent filler of albums past.
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On their fourth album, the Kings of Leon still rule with a messy hand, applying rough magic and blurry, slurred imagery to their swashbuckling rock.
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Throughout Only by the Night, frontman Caleb Followill wails forlornly about cheap thrills and true love while his two brothers (and a cousin) bash? out spooky, raw-edged riffs that rarely go where you expect them to.
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As it is, it's a very fine record from a band who are seemingly growing in stature, confidence, and ability by the day.
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When Caleb evokes God's wrath on the "crucified U.S.A." or describes lost-highway lonelines, the batter-fried U2 atmospherics and portentous Dixiefied grunge makes his worry as real as Brimstone. [Oct 2008, 2008, p.80]
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FilterThey're better when they're reflective, not reflexive, as on the galloping, careening 'Be Somebody' and the mournful 'Cold Desert,' but the album lacks the hooky rock the band once pulled off so effortlessly, even when thry weren't trying. [Fall 2008, p.91]
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There are a few head-scratchers,....but singer Caleb Followill has never been in better command of his beyond-his-years howl, and he's got monster hooks and melodies yet in his bottle of tricks.
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Lord knows that's not the sound [arena-ready guitar] likely to revitalize rock music in 2008, but it's generally a convincing fit for the extended Followill clan, whose salty earnestness grounds some epic production.
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It’s a tight, very good album and although it’ll have its unfair share of detractors, like the rest of the band’s albums, it will shine no matter what.
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The dreamy 'Cold Desert' is the perfect maudlin end to this short, sharp, 42-minute, no-filler album, revelling in every miserable blues-rocker cliché as Matthew's guitar goes all shoegazey and then briefly threatens to turn the whole thing into a 'Purple Rain' wig-out.
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It's the mark of a great band when each new album is better than the one before it, and with Only by the Night, Kings of Leon shows once more just how great a band it has become.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 154 out of 223
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Mixed: 29 out of 223
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Negative: 40 out of 223
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JamesJul 20, 2009I was a fan of Kings of Leon until this album. It represents the opposite of everything they were built on.
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Apr 27, 2012
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TomASep 25, 2009