Only By The Night
by Kings of Leon
  • Record Label: RCA
  • Release Date: Sep 23, 2008
Metascore
63

Generally favorable reviews - based on 30 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 30
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 30
  3. Negative: 3 out of 30
  1. Observer Music Monthly
    100
    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.
  2. Entertainment Weekly
    83
    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.
  3. Sputnikmusic
    80
    As it is, it's a very fine record from a band who are seemingly growing in stature, confidence, and ability by the day.
  5. Uncut
    80
    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]
  6. Q Magazine
    80
    Kings 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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  7. Spin
    80
    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.
  8. Hartford Courant
    80
    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.
  9. Delusions of Adequacy
    80
    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.
  10. New Musical Express (NME)
    70
    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.
  11. Billboard
    70
    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.
  12. Blender
    70
    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]
  13. AllMusic
    70
    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.
  14. Filter
    70
    They'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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  15. The A.V. Club
    67
    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.
  16. Los Angeles Times
    63
    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.

Awards & Rankings

17
#17 Most Discussed Album of 2008
60
#60 Most Shared Album of 2008

User Reviews

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User Score
7.0

Generally favorable reviews- based on 223 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 154 out of 223
  2. Mixed: 29 out of 223
  3. Negative: 40 out of 223
  1. James
    Jul 20, 2009
    0
    I was a fan of Kings of Leon until this album. It represents the opposite of everything they were built on.
  2. WD1
    Apr 27, 2012
    5
    I see reviewers writing whole essays about this album, but I think one word can easily sum up Only By The Night: tame. "Crawl" is actuallyI see reviewers writing whole essays about this album, but I think one word can easily sum up Only By The Night: tame. "Crawl" is actually pretty good, though.… Full Review »
  3. TomA
    Sep 25, 2009
    3
    At best, its fairly average. 2007's Because Of Times was one of the best albums of the last decade, but this fell along way short of At best, its fairly average. 2007's Because Of Times was one of the best albums of the last decade, but this fell along way short of that benchmark. There are 1 or 2 decent moments, but most of the songs are wastefully transparent, the lyrics are horribly cliched and any trace of that quirky edge ,which made the band so likeable in earlier albums, has been washed away in a tide of indie-rock mediocrity. It seems that Kings of Leon have transcended from different but brilliant to uniform but sellable; pressure from their record company may not have helped, but the whole of this record seems to have slipped into the line of 'fashionable' music. A special mention, finally, for 'Use Somebody'. Quite simply, one of the worst songs ever written by any band with their level of talent. It really is awful - yet it has risen to new heights of adulation. And that, in a way, pretty much sums up this album.… Full Review »
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