Kings of Leon’s last release, Only by the Night, was a surprisingly high-production affair, with glitz and gloss encapsulating songs the bearing the already slick style they had adopted at the time. For a band made up of Southern boys raised by a traveling preacher, that sound seemed slightly out of place and threw a lot of people off. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that they lost some fans amongst the radio-friendly bombast of arena-sized single “Use Somebody.” I, however, thought the album was pretty good, although it didn’t produce the same amount of memorable tracks that Aha Shake Heartbreak did.

After a surprisingly short amount of time, Kings of Leon re-enters the fold with Come Around Sundown, a 13 track ensemble that once again lays waste to preconceived notions about the good ol’ boys’ songwriting abilities, genre, and maturity levels. Well, musical maturity, at least. For the most part, this album takes on a more simplistic, barebones style where each song consists of two guitars, bass, vocals, and drums, tinged and tinted from time to time by organ, piano, slide guitar, and string and brass instruments. Yet for how minimalist this album is, the songs have a great variety to them, and when you kill both of those birds with one stone, you know you’re in a good place, at least creatively. The tones may often sound similar, but each song definitely has a distinct personality.

Kings of Leon is a band that has a hard time scoring a win amongst hipsters. To an extent it’s understandable; Stereogum’s review definitely has a valid point in saying that they have, at times, almost become a parody of themselves. However, in my opinion that shouldn’t have such a heavy influence on the way one listens to their music. It’s like disliking a band for their personal politics when they’re not explicitly alluded to in their songs. Either the band has gone too mainstream with their music and forgotten their Southern roots, or there are too many “generic stabs at Southern soulfulness” and the band found a comfort zone of sorts. If they’re gonna be in a comfort zone, I’d rather have it sound like Come Around Sundown than Only by the Night.

Overall, Come Around Sundown is a good album that has about six great songs, which coincidentally are the first six songs. It seems like KoL learned their lesson from the huge mainstream appeal that the previous album brought with it and toned it down a notch. The production almost seems dirty at times on this album, which adds a texture that compliments well the general sound of the songs. Say what you will about their ability to succinctly capture a dignified portrait of the south in musical form, I’ll take a song like “Back Down South” over radio tractor pop any day. My country/southern music tastes yield a very short supply of listenable songs, so I’ll take what I can get. All things considered, this is more of a step sideways than forward, but the outright dismissal of the album that many are walking away with is quite silly, in my opinion.