Would it be fun to be in Kings Of Leon? Now you can ask that about any band, but the last few albums of the band around the Followill brothers made it splash joie de vivre not right away. To that you can add the largely perfunctory performances that we have seen the band give in our country. With the title of this ninth album, Caleb Folowill and his family ask an important question: Can We Please Have Fun.
Can we do that? Well, partly. To start with the good news: across the board this is the strongest Kings Of Leon album since Mechanical Bull (2013). Gone is the frequent smooth edge of the previous two albums, there are not even any real ballads to be found. The bad news is that the song material occasionally leaves something to be desired. Mid-tempo songs with a country twang like Don’t Stop The Bleeding and Ease Me On may feel different from the band’s recent work, but do not necessarily make the heart beat faster.
Fortunately, more than half of the songs are exciting. This is how it builds Rainbow Ball on to a wonderful climax and we haven’t heard Caleb scream as good as he did in years Hesitation Generation. The highlight is the roaring sound Nothing To Do, with one moment of rock & roll ecstasy that the band used much more often fifteen years ago. After the phrase ‘our wires got crossed and now we don’t…’ the band falls silent for a moment, and then slams their foot mercilessly on the accelerator as soon as Followill shouts ‘SPEAK!’ roars into the microphone. With moments like this, the gentlemen will fill the festival fields again in the coming years.
If this album had had a few more songs of that caliber, we would really like one return to form can speak, but at least things are going in the right direction.
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