Open share drawer On their eighth album, the Followill brothers desperately cling to a sound that has stopped working, trying to write songs that soar but capable only of ones that wallow. Itâs hard to pinpoint when Kings of Leon stopped enjoying themselves. They were never the most profound band of the aughts rock revival, but they were the ones who bought in most completely, dressing like the group from Almost Famous and living like an audition for a Behind the Music special. Yet once they achieved their hard-fought arena stardom, the obligations of running a rock band as a major enterprise sapped any residual freedom and impulsivity from their music. Their records grew bigger while the personalities behind them shrank. Itâs been 10 years since the last Kings of Leon song anybody wants to karaoke, and the band is still chasing the shadow of their mammoth late-â00s hits.