Only By the Night - Kings of leon

So here's a what I'm listening to entry, deal with it, its my blog.

Rarely in today's media environment do I find something that catches me completely by surprise. There are just to many reviews and news articles floating around that its almost impossible to run into something that you haven't heard somebody's opinion about. This is particularly true of new music for me, since there is so much of it out there I generally have to use a review or somebody's recommendation as a filter before listening to an album, and in that case my listening is already colored. This King's of Leon disk was a pleasant exception. A friend of mine gave it to me and said they really enjoyed it, but since this friend's musical taste usually runs a little poppier (and eighties) than mine, I really didn't have any kind of expectations. However after I threw the disk on the way home I was pleasantly surprised. Overall this was a very solid disk that I thoroughly enjoyed. Most importantly the album passed three of my most important tests when deciding whether or not something is worth listening to:

1) The road test: Basically this one tests whether or not I would want to throw on the disc while driving. This isn't as insignificant as you would think. Given the nature of how I live, the car (or ipod, or some other travel device) tends to be how I end up listening to music at least 90% of the time so something's travel listenability is key. This isn't a deal breaker with an alblum since much of the world music and jazz that I listen to doesn't translate well to the car (Mingus I'm looking at you), but when it comes to rock or pop it's a necessity. Since I pounded throught the entire alblum in one drive home from Monteray I would say that that it definitely met this criteria.

2) Completeness Test: Too often I end up only likeing one or two songs from a disc and the rest of it is never listed to again (Dresden Dolls I'm looking at you). Even alblums I really love often have tracks that I find disposable (as much as I hate to say it Radiohead's Kid A, an alblum I completely love, falls under this category) so if I can get through the entire tracklist without thinking about hitting skip its an accomplishment. Again this alblum passes the test completely. I'm sure there will be certain tracks that I end up listening to more than others (cold desert and Closer being the early favorites), but (other than the stupid dance remix track stuck on the end of the 'deluxe' alblum I was given) the entire thing seems equally strong to me and at no time did I feel the urge to jump a track.

3) Relistenability Test - Self explanatory, but considering I pounded through the whole thing twice on the aforementioned drive home so far so good.

Look I'm not going to make any grand claims about how this is the greatest alblum of the year because I don't know. I also think a lot of my reaction had to with the enjoyment of being taken completely by surprise for once. But I will say I think this is a solid disc and its worth checking out.