Only by the Night

Well, it’s certainly listenable, if not particularly interesting. “Sex on Fire” is a great track and there are some other fun moments. But it also features some of the tendencies in Top 40 rock that tends to make my eyes roll (I’m looking at you, cliche “oh-woah-woahs” in “Use Somebody”). It’s like if Hootie and the Blowfish got Blues Traveler’s lead singer and decided to write songs specifically to be played in Guitar Hero clones. Serviceable, but uninspired.

verrry sensible rock and roll. commercially sexy, clearly staying safe. whole album sounds uninteresting and the same. similar to other commercial schlock from early 2000s: maroon 5, coldplay, killers, john mayer. ugh

not my cup o' tea.

This is excellent stadium rock.

The KoL album that’s cool to hate. I don’t think this album is as bad as people make out, it is just cursed given how over played sex on fire and use somebody were at the time. This album did make KoL the biggest band in the world for a short period of time but in my opinion they have never recovered since, their first 3 albums are much better and personally don’t think this one should be on the list on years to come.

An album that was everywhere for a while, and rightly so, as it is great! Falls just short of a fifth star, partly cos it is a bit samey, partly cos I prefer their rawer earlier stuff.

mehhh

Started out promising - the first two tracks (Closer and Crawl) had a pretty cool sound. But then the rest of the album (including the "hits" that I'd never heard) got pretty generic 2000s-rock. Not bad or anything, just nothing I'd seek out again. It's removed from the 1001 albums books now, which was a good choice.