It's tempting to continue the Kings-of-Leon-are-the-new-U2 metaphor all the way through Come Around Sundown, the group's fifth album and their first since the commercial breakthrough that was Only By the Night (and, more specifically, the radio-ruling smash single "Use Somebody"). After all, U2's fifth album was The Joshua Tree, and they were coming off a similarly huge run of crossover hits (chiefly, "Pride (In the Name of Love)"). On Come Around Sundown, Kings of Leon certainly don't do anything to suppress those comparisons (one of the first sounds on album-opener "The End" is a guitar drenched in echo effects that could have come straight from the Edge's delay pedal). If the comparison held steady, it would make Kings of Leon's narrative easier to digest and Come Around Sundown a much more straightforward album to absorb.

But Come Around Sundown is no Joshua Tree. That doesn't mean that it isn't exceptional — it is — but it doesn't do the things we've come to expect from Kings of Leon. The band had always done a good job balancing the three influences that inform their considerable chops — those being beat-up garage rock, country twang and enough Brit-pop sophistication to make a… read more »