• Record Label: RCA
  • Release Date: Oct 19, 2010
Metascore
64

Generally favorable reviews - based on 27 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 13 out of 27
  2. Negative: 2 out of 27
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  1. Oct 22, 2010
    83
    Kings Of Leon's fifth album, Come Around Sundown, is just as much of a crowd-pleaser as Only By The Night, but the four Followills bring back more of the chasing-a-whim personality of their earlier albums.
  2. On Kings of Leon's latest album, Come Around Sundown, the family Followill makes a strong bid to please longtime fans as well as the recently converted.
  3. The gigantic-sounding Come Around Sundown suggests that, Caleb's humble grumblings aside, they are thriving on it.
  4. Uncut
    80
    This time out, the band wants you to have an experience, and that's what you get, on a record that's over the top, wildly inventive and satisfying in the ever-deepening way of landmark longplayers from the last century. [Nov 2010, p.89]
  5. Q Magazine
    80
    Come Around Sundown is the sound of them trying to wrestle its relationship with fame back under control. On a musical level, they've succeeded--they've scaled back the ambition with out throwing the baby out with the bathwater. [Nov 2010, p.102]
  6. Come Around Sundown is the remarkable product of an ambitious supergroup expanding their horizons, and is absolutely worth persevering with.
  7. With its redemptive sins, Come Around Sundown ends up being a portrait of light and dark worthy of the rock and roll bible.
  8. Oct 21, 2010
    70
    The result of all this hemming and hawing is a captivating reminder of how much weirder this band is than its reputation.
  9. It confirms that the group's sudden success wasn't overnight, but rather overdue.
  10. Kings Of Leon's newfound pop sensibilities often feel at odds with their southern-rock instincts, and while this may result in fewer immediately recognisable radio hits, it makes for a largely enjoyable batch of surprisingly invigourated tunes from one of American rock's most unlikely mainstays.
  11. With the bare minimum of innovation on show and nothing approaching the pure pop elation of Sex on Fire, Come Around Sundown will go down as KoL's classic consolidation album.
  12. Come Around Sundown's drawling Joshua Tree sprawl, engaging enough on album opener The End and gospel-tinged first single Radioactive, soon grows shopworn.
  13. They seem hell-bent on pleasing everyone, and at times they succeed.
  14. Dec 21, 2010
    60
    While enjoyable and familiar, this set of songs reflects a band who knows what music they don't want to be making but haven't--at least, not yet--determined what it is they want to be defined by instead.
  15. Dec 21, 2010
    60
    Sundown is still considerably boring when compared to the likes of the Kings' first three albums. It's also too long, the back end sacked with faceless mid-tempo songs devoid of hooks that can't compare to the mini-epics up front.
  16. 60
    If you're an old, die-hard Kings Of Leon fan Come Around Sundown will upset you. Keep what you love about this band close to your heart and ignore this album, you'll thank yourself in the end.
  17. Oct 22, 2010
    60
    It's all a show with Kings Of Leon, and there's nothing they yearn for more than the chance to exercise their sexual prowess.
  18. Come Around Sundown buys Kings of Leon at least a little more time as the champions of mass-appeal Dixie garage rock.
  19. Mojo
    60
    It's still a safe record, however, neither spasm of petulant experimentation hell-bent on commercial suicide, nor return to the good old days beloved by original fans but viewed warily by the new. [Nov. 2010, p. 94]
  20. Ultimately, too many of these tunes are rehearsal room grooves in search of a hook.
  21. Released two years after the international breakthrough hit Only by the Night, Come Around Sundown continues Kings of Leon's journey into the upper echelon of mainstream pop/rock, with super-sized choruses and guitar heroics thrown in for good measure.
  22. In search of the grandiose, Kings of Leon seem to have forgotten how to rock. It's as if the quartet wanted to become the next U2 so badly that it lost sight of how it got here in the first place.
  23. It's an album that feels more about hanging on to the sudden influx of fans than about moving the message (whatever that is) forward.
  24. The Followill boys were experimenting and started leading us somewhere. The fact that Come Around Sundown falls short, then, is all the more disappointing.
  25. Here, the Kings of Leon have largely chosen – albeit through audibly gritted teeth – to stick fast to the Bono-approved stadium rock that caused Pitchfork to dub them Y'all 2.
  26. Dec 22, 2010
    36
    Come Around Sundown is, and it ends up being no different from a lot of the phony populism in the air these days.
  27. Come Around Sundown is musical wallpaper for those who purchase such amenities from the likes of Tesco or Asda. It represents little more than a giant turd amidst a sea of mediocrity, several million of which will shortly be appearing in homes near you.
User Score
6.9

Generally favorable reviews- based on 132 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 88 out of 132
  2. Negative: 22 out of 132
  1. Oct 20, 2010
    10
    A stellar followup to their breakout album "Only By Night", Kings of Leon continues delivering rousing anthem rock with a resonant emotionalA stellar followup to their breakout album "Only By Night", Kings of Leon continues delivering rousing anthem rock with a resonant emotional undercurrent. It's great work, and people who protest ought to take note that they're not "pushing the envelope" because they don't have to and that they haven't "sold out" because their sound, while on a grander scale here, still retains the soulful spirit of their first three albums. Full Review »
  2. Oct 21, 2010
    3
    Although this album isn't as bad as the last two, I still feel cheated. Although there are brushes with greatness, KOL doesn't quite commit.Although this album isn't as bad as the last two, I still feel cheated. Although there are brushes with greatness, KOL doesn't quite commit. Almost as if they believe that if they churn out something actually resembling rock that they are "cheapening" their artistic greatness. Ultimately KOL has become a clique, a perfect example of what happens when a great band starts believing their own press. Full Review »
  3. Oct 19, 2010
    1
    This is the sound of a band losing all its credibility, the sound of a band failing to recreate any sense of emotional authenticity that theyThis is the sound of a band losing all its credibility, the sound of a band failing to recreate any sense of emotional authenticity that they once successfully postured. What an insult to the noble notion of rock and roll. What dull rubbish fed blindly to the (mostly British) tone-deaf masses. What filth. With the last album and this one, which is only marginally better, the Kings of Leon have discredited the worth of all their previous work. An awful collection of songs that say nothing, literally nor emotionally. 1 point for not having anything closely resembling 'Sex on Fire'. Full Review »