Kings Of Leon — Only By The Night

Kings Of Leon's Youth And Young Manhood debut made them sound like a raunchy, Southern-fried version of The Strokes. But over the course of three more albums their sound has morphed into something entirely unrecognizable from their former selves.

Their gradual transformation into neo-psychedelic space rockers is now complete on Only By The Night, and the results are pretty mixed.

First single "Sex On Fire" soars pretty high — both in terms of its melody and the reverb-drenched guitars that fill it — and it's also pretty catchy. Likewise, "Use Somebody" sounds vaguely like a far-out U2 mixed with Coldplay (except it doesn't suck).

Unfortunately, there are a few tracks that drag the record down such as "I Want You" and "17." The former is a bit too drum-heavy and doesn't rock nearly as hard as some of the other songs on the record, while the latter is just plain boring. This is pretty unfortunate because had this record been more interesting it could have been one of the year's best.

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