Kings of Leon’s career follows a familiar trajectory from music press-championed guitar-slinging upstarts to success towards gradual disillusion. However, the southern states boys’ seventh album finds them successfully relocating their old vim and enthusiasm, and is packed with the sort of zippy verses and arena-sized choruses which resulted in Only By the Night’s global domination in 2008. Opener Waste a Moment is a sibling of shoutalong signature anthem Sex on Fire, but no worse for that. Other tracks have a more Springsteenesque, storytelling feel, with occasional lyrical cliches: people are caught in traps, and told “Don’t say it’s over.”
No wheels are being reinvented here, but while much of Walls marks a return to the Kings sound of eight years ago, there is some experimentation. Reverend features an untypically pretty guitar line, and they are unusually wistful on Conversation Piece and the really lovely Muchacho, which includes the unexpected but mellifluous sound of a Kings of Leon whistling solo.
