In the fall of 2008 there was an injection of youthful energy in the world of music, a new semester was in the works for me and a new Kings of Leon album was the music of the moment. It was one of the few times I can remember a rock band being the center of attention in the culture of my youth, all the better that it was for good reason. Only by the Night is a great album with two massive hit songs that propelled it in quick succession to the front of our minds.

Album opener, “Closer” puts us on pins and needles from the outset with the recurring delay guitar rippling like a foreshadowing of the heavy journey ahead. “Skies are blinking at me, I see a storm bubbling up from the sea, and it’s coming closer.” The song sets the foundation for the rest of this monster album with its six singles, but also immediately indicates it won’t be the smoothest ride. It won’t be sunshine and rainbows, but you should have no interest in getting off the ride. The eerily optimistic hungers you get from it will be satisfied.

If you’re looking for the banger of 2008, “Sex On Fire” is your hit, pun intended. This has the guitar string bend heard round the world, with all the distortion necessary to accentuate one of the steamier choruses of the year. “You, your sex is on fire, ah, ah, consumed, with what’s just transpired,” immediately followed by that massive guitar driving the point home. Radio play never killed this one for me, and when it came on at a party it was a cue to head for the keg line, as the were about to be a lot of empty cups.

Just a month later the equally compelling second single was released with a less sexy, more communal tone, “Use Somebody.” Lead singer Caleb Followill pangs for a companion from a dark place, “Someone like you and all you know and how you speak, countless lovers under cover of the street, you know that I could use somebody…Someone like you.“ The chorus of “oh-ohs” forms the pop friendly bones of the song and it is heavenly to hear a crowd echo this by the thousands, even someone like you.

As their fourth studio album and follow up to 2007’s excellent, Because of the Times, Kings of Leon were already ascendant, Only by the Night put them into the stratosphere. This was the album where they broke into the United States, after years and albums of success in the United Kingdom. This Tennessee band of three brothers and a cousin rocked their way around the world before coming back to conquer America. I don’t love everything that comes out of Nashville, but when I listen to this album I can’t help but ask someone to pass the southern barbecue.