Kings of Leon - Come Around Sundown

Many suggest that the sophomore album for a breakout band is the notoriously difficult one. In Kings of Leon's case it's their fifth album, Come Around Sundown. The album doesn't have big boots to fill; it has gargantuan ones, following up Only By Night's six million sales worldwide and four Grammy Awards.

Come Around Sundown doesn't attempt to reinvent the wheel. Working once again with producers Angelo Petraglia and Jacquire King, Kings of Leon hone in on a sound that has worked for them in the past, while offering a something that perhaps feels more natural and grounded than their past works. After years creating music that aspires to stadium rock, through the virtues of living that life for the past few years, Come Around Sundown feels like the product of a band that can approach that style with certainty and experience.

Kings of Leon are perhaps best in their simplicity and cohesiveness. They might be predictable in their sound but that is purely a product of a tight four piece that doesn't show off; the guitar riffs of lead single Radioactive aren't the stuff of legends, but they work superbly in the spectrum of the steady, pulsating sound that Kings of Leon are known for. Lead vocalist Caleb Followill might be a poor man's Eddie Vedder, but what he brings to the table works purely because of the simplicity of his singing.

Connecting with southern roots with the stripped back mid-album Back Down South, Kings of Leon manage to build a catchy rock song out of a fiddle-laden hoedown in perhaps the first true standout moment of the album. Following it up with chilled Beach Side, one feels that by sticking with a tried and true formula for the first half of the album -- perhaps to appease fans -- the spice that is variety has been buried too late in the album for it to truly make an impact. Moments like this continue to trickle in through the latter half of Come Around Sundown; Birthday is cruise ship music with balls, and the sparse Mi Amigo hits immediately with its uncluttered sound.

One gets the feeling from Come Around Sundown that Kings of Leon, though still most definitely a true voice of music in the 2000's and 2010's, have said everything they have to say; at least for now. There's no real moments of epiphany; it's a product of a band asserting who they already are, not who they aspire to be. That's not a bad thing, it's just not the sort of thing that careers are defined by.