The title was a promise hidden in plain sight. Walls, the seventh studio album by the American rock group Kings of Leon, arrived on 14 October 2016 with a name that spelled out We Are Like Love Songs. The Followills—brothers Caleb, Nathan and Jared and their cousin Matthew—wrote every track, and the record was produced by Markus Dravs at Henson Studios in Hollywood. After years of chasing a bigger, arena-sized sound, the band seemed to be reaching for something more intimate, even romantic. But the album's first week would tell a very different story.
A first US number one
The lead single 'Waste a Moment' came out on 9 September 2016, and it did something Kings of Leon had not managed in years. It topped Billboard's Alternative Songs chart, their first leader on that list since 2010. That was a signal that radio was ready for them again. A month later, on the day the album was released, the band played the song on both Today and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. The push was working. Walls entered the Billboard 200 at number one with 77,000 album equivalent units, 68,000 of which were traditional sales. It was the band's first US chart-topper, beating the number two peaks of Mechanical Bull and Come Around Sundown.
Then came the drop. In its second week, Walls fell from first place to twentieth on the Billboard 200. That was the tenth-largest fall from the top of that chart as of December 2016, and the biggest of the year until Bon Jovi's This House Is Not for Sale arrived in November. A number one album losing that much ground in seven days was rare, and it made the triumph of the debut feel fragile. The band had finally reached the summit in America, but they could not hold it.
The band had finally reached the summit in America, but they could not hold it.
Mixed reviews and warm consensus
The reviews were mixed, with no clear verdict either way. On Metacritic, Walls scored 62 out of 100 based on 23 reviews, a rating described as generally favorable. AllMusic gave it four stars out of five, and NME also gave it four stars. But The Guardian's Dave Simpson noted that the album returned the group to the sound they had eight years earlier, a comment that read as both praise and a gentle shrug. Rolling Stone's Will Hermes praised producer Markus Dravs for translating the Followills' signature sound and delivery into denser arrangements. Still, the critical consensus was warm rather than excited.
The album's own tracklist told a story of a band trying to balance old instincts with new polish. Walls contains ten songs, including 'Waste a Moment', 'Reverend', 'Around the World', 'Find Me', 'Over', 'Muchacho', 'Conversation Piece', 'Eyes on You', 'Wild' and the title track. 'Walls' itself had been released as a single on 23 September 2016, before the album arrived. 'Reverend' followed as a promo single on 6 October and then went to alternative radio on 7 February 2017. 'Around the World' reached alternative radio on 19 September 2017. The band was still working the record long after the chart fall.
The live campaign had started with confidence. On 10 September 2016, Kings of Leon headlined Lollapalooza Europe in Berlin, playing songs from across their catalogue and the new 'Waste a Moment'. The Walls Tour began on 12 January 2017, and a week later the group performed 'Reverend' on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. They were not hiding from the mixed reviews or the second-week slide. They kept touring and promoting, as if the songs themselves still had something to prove.
NME included Walls in its list of the best albums of 2016, placing it at number 32. That small honor sat oddly next to the chart collapse. A record could be both celebrated by one publication and abandoned by much of the public within days. The title's acronym, We Are Like Love Songs, suggested a band reaching for warmth and connection. But the numbers told a colder story: a first week at number one, then a fall to twentieth, one of the steepest drops from the top the chart had seen.
Ten years on, Walls remains a strange artifact from a band in transition. It gave Kings of Leon their first American number one, a milestone they had chased for years. It also gave them one of the fastest descents from that peak in modern chart history. The album debuted at number one in Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom as well, proving the band's global reach was intact. But the American slide overshadowed the victory. Walls is a reminder that reaching the top is one thing, and staying there is another.