At their recent Brixton Academy show, Kings of Leon played to an audience so socially and generationally varied that, their extraordinary new album aside, it seemed clear the Followills were poised on the cusp of superstardom. (The entry of their new single, Sex on Fire, at No 1 confirms this.) I say “aside”, but removing Only by the Night, the band’s fourth album, from the equation, however temporarily, is impossible. It is, in short, a monster, waiting to be uncaged by huge record sales. But it’s a monster with subtle qualities, which are already being overlooked (a common KoL oversight). For every stadium-ready, U2-big track such as Crawl or Use Somebody (on which the catch in Caleb Followill’s voice as he sings “I hope it’s going to make you notice someone like me” is positively brutal), there is a song as strange and multilayered as Seventeen, which, dodgy lyrics notwithstanding, points up the band’s burgeoning dynamic dexterity. Or Cold Desert, which takes the blues of the group’s Southern roots as its base, but makes out of them something almost ambient and wholly devastating, and offers yet more proof of what a powerful singer Caleb is. Or Revelry, a track that from the first note lets you know it’s zeroing in on the despair that often coexists with the fun the song’s title seems to describe. A hugely important album by a hugely important band.

RCA 88697351992

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of the Decade
• 70 facts you didn't know about Marvel
• The 50 Biggest Movies Of 2010