Kings of Leon
have always been something of an album rock band, capable of summoning radio hits but just as likely to craft raging, throaty anthems that carry you along on their bloodshot emotions. It's a vibe that works best when they keep things simple, as they do on their ninth studio album,
Can We Please Have Fun
. The album was produced with a light touch by England's
Kid Harpoon
, who has brought a grounded, analog sense of taste to albums by
Harry Styles
,
Maggie Rogers
, and
Florence + the Machine
. Here, he largely stays out way -- or perhaps smartly guides
to stay out of their own way and keep things as bare-bones as possible. The album has the raw, athletic feeling of songs being jammed out in a basement and pummeled into shape by repetition and verbal fist fights. Particularly redolent of this raw feeling is "Mustang"; equal parts
Iggy & the Stooges
and
Achtung Baby
-era
U2
, it's easily one of the band's most infectious singles since "Use Somebody" and one that also feels the most like it could have come from their sleazy garage rock debut,
Youth & Young Manhood
. Elsewhere, the band manage to pull wider influences into their sound without weighing themselves down or slowing the momentum. This is especially true of "Actual Daydream," a Spanish-inflected number that nicely evokes the global art rock of
Bruce Cockburn
. There's also the fluorescent '80s, adult-contempo balladry of "Split Screen" and the breezy,
Jimmy Buffet
-meets-
George Harrison
romanticism of "Ease on Me." Lyrically, the album is as Dada-gritty as any of singer
Caleb Followill
's past work, punctuated by wry, pseudo-existential ponderings, as in "Mustangs," which asks, "Are you a mustang or a kitty?" Your desire to answer that question may or may not depend on how deeply you spark to the album. Yet, the lyric is playful, Pop Art-provocative, and speaks to the joy, sweat, and poetic inspiration coursing through all of
. ~ Matt Collar