“It’s going to be all that moany, groany stuff,” says a friend when I tell her I’m writing about the new Kings of Leon record. And she’s not wrong.

She was referring, of course, to frontman Caleb Followill’s signature husky delivery, which is back in full force on the Nashville rockers’ seventh LP WALLS. In fact, WALLS starts off like any other KOL album — the raucous electric guitar on opening track “Waste a Moment” feels familiar, but in a warm, homey kind of way.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think KOL’s best album is 2010’s Come Around Sundown (sorry not sorry, Aha Shake Heartbreak fans), and WALLS reminds me of that one. It’s more mellow than Mechanical Bull and not as raw as the band’s pre-“Sex on Fire” stuff. There’s not necessarily a standout rock single, like “Supersoaker” or “Use Somebody” — this is a record from a more even-tempered KOL, not a band where its members stagger drunkenly around onstage.

WALLS is also the band’s first album without longtime producer Angelo Petraglia, with whom — as KOL said in an interview with Billboard — the band had grown too safe. This time, they left Nashville for Los Angeles and producer Markus Dravs, whose creds include Mumford & Sons’ Sigh No More, Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs and Coldplay’s Viva la Vida — records by bands that were at one point jockeying for a similar cultural space as Kings of Leon, a space that has gotten even smaller as indie rock has morphed into bland mainstream mush. The most interesting pop music being made right now does not tend to be arena rock the way it has been in decades past.

Those aforementioned pop records were (mostly) critically and commercially successful releases, and each was a turning point marking a seismic shift in the way people thought about those bands and their music. Sigh No More showed that Americana could go Top 40. The Suburbs showed us the glorious beginning of the end of popular experimental rock à la Vampire Weekend. Viva la Vida ended up being the last good Coldplay album.

I’m not sure WALLS is a turning point for Kings of Leon or for popular music. It’s too early to tell. But it’s a solid listen, from the ambient, old West-inspired “Muchacho” to “Conversation Piece,” which has Followill softly asking to be taken away from L.A. (and back to Nashville?). The album’s best track, “Over,” makes for a sort of Robyn-meets-KOL moment that might just be this record’s mission statement: “Don’t say it’s over, don’t say it’s over anymore.”

At its heart, WALLS is a reassuring record. It may be more of the moany-groany stuff, but isn’t that what draws us to Kings of Leon? Every move feels like a natural extension, like they’re never trying to pretend to be something they so clearly aren’t, even if it’s not always clear they know where they’re going. We listen to their albums self-consciously maybe, but that might be more of a reflection on us than them.

KOL is making music that is just different enough to warrant a new record without trying to haphazardly keep up with what people are into right now. They’re not trying to make tropical house-synth-R&B-inspired pop rock. They know their strengths, and they’re still pretty damn good at playing to them.

Moan and groan away, Caleb Followill.

Email music@nashvillescene.com