Kings of Leon pose an existential question to listeners on the first single from their latest album: Are you a mustang or are you a kitty? Let’s turn that around: Which Kings of Leon are we getting now? The purring arena-rockers or an untamed stallion?

Judging from the 12 tracks on “Can We Please Have Fun,” it’s time to pull out a saddle. There’s a raw unpredictability to the band’s ninth album, a welcome return to the Kings’ early sawdust-and-spilled-beer days. We can definitely have fun here.

Brothers Caleb, Jared and Nathan Followill, and cousin Matthew Followill have put out the album 21 years after their debut, “Youth & Young Manhood,” and it’s more like their first recordings and their best in years.

A punky, garage feel flows through the tracks, with the bass and drums cranking and Caleb Followill’s voice cracking on songs like “Hesitation Generation” and “Nothing to Do.” “Actual Daydream” has a country-indie vibe, and the single “Mustang” is angular and strutting. “Don’t Stop the Bleeding” is a sultry arena banger, and “Nowhere to Run” makes your heart pump faster.

But it’s “Split Screen” that is the album’s brightest track, a slow burn with enigmatic lyrics that nod to a midlife crisis and parental angst. It’s easily one of the band’s best songs, the perfect balance of minimalism and coiled power.

The album is produced by Kid Harpoon, who has sharpened albums by Harry Styles, Florence + the Machine and Miley Cyrus. It’s the first time Harpoon has worked with the Kings. The combo has lanced the inflated, mighty Kings and brought them closer to the jagged sound they started with.

Lyric-wise, sex on fire has been replaced by crying babies on airplanes. But this is a band that even in midlife is embracing their inner mustangs, not kitties. — Mark Kennedy, Associated Press

Waxahatchee, known for gut-wrenching alt- country, shows mastery of the craft on its sixth studio album, “Tigers Blood.”

The Alabama-raised singer-songwriter Katie Crutchfield started Waxahatchee in 2010, following years on the road with power pop-punk bands P.S. Eliot and Bad Banana. Those scrappy lo-fi days are long behind her. “Tigers Blood” is the work of a new kind of artist, and a natural progression from 2020’s “Saint Cloud,” the record that broke through to a larger audience and received critical acclaim.

Waxahatchee is most effective when reflecting everyday realities. “Tigers Blood” exudes contentment, an artist who is wiser than before. Take the track “Evil Spawn.” Atop ascending riffs, Crutchfield sings, “What you thought was enough now seems insane.” Similarly, on the country dream “Lone Star Lake,” Crutchfield sings about driving to a lake and sleeping all day.

The simple joys of this album differ from her previous work. Gone are tortured emotions and self- doubt communicated through distorted riffs and indie rock sensibilities.

In the innocent title track, Crutchfield sings about summertime, childhood and “tigers blood,” a flavor of snow cone, atop banjo and slide guitar. “You’re laughing and smiling, drove my Jeep through the mud/ Your teeth and your tongue bright red from tigers blood/ We were young for so long, seersuckers of time,” Crutchfield sings.

In recent years, indie rock artists have been leaning into folk and country, but those sounds have long been at the heart of Crutchfield’s work. She has distinguished herself through poignant lyrics sung through an ever- present twang, never shying away from her Southern roots.

The single, “Right Back to It,” features guitarist MJ Lenderman of the indie rock band Wednesday. It’s the best of both worlds: an Americana song that pushes and pulls between country and indie but settles somewhere in the middle. It’s about easing into the later years of a steady relationship. “Let my mind run wild/ I don’t know why I do it/ But you just settle in/ Like a song with no end,” the pair sing.

It doubles as a thesis statement for the record: it’s a rootsy love letter to her chosen genres, to finding contentment and an artistic evolution. — Karena Phan, Associated Press