Can We Please Have Enjoyable is such a horrible phrase. It adheres to the Nashville rockers’ favoured five-syllable album title construction, if that’s essential to you, however is prickly and passive-aggressive coming from 4 middle-aged males. Its supposed message appears like inane boosterism given the state of the world; additional proof of the quartet’s endless insularity. And why ought to rock be enjoyable anyway? Kings of Leon’s finest songs – Knocked Up, Milk, Nearer – are shadowed by loss of life or loss.
The excellent news is that Caleb Followill retains one of many nice rock voices, a craving, brittle, whiskey-brined caw that’s richer than ever. Child Harpoon’s manufacturing is invariably glorious. Precise Daydream finds unlikely harmony between coastal post-punk and heartland MOR; Nothing to Do is a wrecking ball of pent-up aggression; and the guitars on Mustang are electrifying shards of sound propelling the track’s racked, feral starvation.
Sadly, practically each lyric dissolves into garbled nonsense. This nearly works for Ballerina Radio’s sketch of post-apocalyptic dystopia, however principally evidences the acquainted issues of a band 25 years into their profession: on the peak of their enjoying energy, but blighted by a vastly diminished capability to jot down robust songs.
