It is hard to take seriously a boy band, at once seemingly so impassioned and so gullible. The Kings of Leon, a boy band akin to the Strokes, are also Southern, and Southern bands likewise are supposed to trade on squalid naïvete (think of Lynyrd Skynyrd or ZZ Top).To boot, the boys’ father, Leon Followill, is a traveling evangelist. Their race to resolve feeling with show business was over before they started.

“Youth and Young Manhood,” Kings of Leon’s debut, almost went double platinum in the U.K., where its poor white iconography must have seemed exotic. “Youth and Young Manhood” was praised for its frank derivativeness; the Allman Brothers, Led Zeppelin, and Tom Petty were popular comparisons. Kings of Leon seemed received as a band that could perpetuate rock traditions, and it makes sense that the band is touring with U2 this spring.

For that reason, but also for its own merits, the new album “Aha Shake Heartbreak” (RCA) should find a much larger audience in the United States. On “Youth and Young Manhood” their father got a shout out, on “Holy Roller Novocaine.” Elsewhere singer Caleb Followill mentioned that “all the bubbas got their heads in a nod,” establishing a social superiority in his athletic drawl, more articulate than seems natural. The songs were seldom distinguished, and the band seemed content with a randy surrealism on par, emotionally, with Queens of the Stone Age.

“Aha” has a more personal sound. Jared Followill’s bass is bouncier, and Caleb’s voice is better at lofting catchphrases above the band’s noise. The opening track, “Slow Night, So Long,” drops its bass line in the last verse and suddenly sounds almost Caribbean. “Day Old Blues” finds Caleb alone, for a while, with an acoustic guitar, and “Rememo” could have been a Leon Russell song, à la “Up on the Tightrope.”

Caleb bites off tongue-twisters like “It’s gonna tickle / You’re gonna giggle / It’s gonna tickle” with relish, and indulges in a few very exciting yodels. These recall and actually improve upon the crooning of Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock; Mr. Followill seems to have the larger lungs. For this second album, he has pointedly cut down on his two packs-a-day habit.

Comparisons to the Strokes, which have dogged the band, will not be silenced by this new album. Matthew Followill’s guitar, particular at the beginning of songs, sounds exactly like the Strokes. And the band’s demeanor owes something to the Strokes – they seem to love nothing more than dancing themselves offstage after they’ve wronged a girl.

But Kings of Leon has too warm a sound to ever truly imitate that band’s chilly postmodern stance – the Kings are too human. The best songs on “Aha” are about balding, and Caleb Followil seems more interested in rascality than in slick perfection. “Girls are gonna love the way I comb my hair / Boys are gonna hate the way I sing,” sings Caleb on one of his only pro-hair tracks. The classic Billy Ray Cyrus trade-off is representative of the boys’ vision of hillbilly Bildung.

The title of “Youth and Young Manhood” pointed the Kings of Leon toward an ironic view of themselves, and if “Aha” has a theme it is deliciously thwarted strength. The cover of “Youth and Young Manhood” featured a silver relief of the Kings’s heads, grouped together to suggest one composite type: a maned, mustached young man who might occasionally wear designer eyeglasses. This composite persona comes alive on “Aha Shake Heartbreak,” best summarized in the lyric “she saw my comb-over / her hourglass body.”

As purveyors of wry double standards, Southern rock bands have long been expert; Kings of Leon are extending the tradition.

At Irving Plaza tonight at 8 p.m. (17 Irving Place, at 15th Street, 212-777-6800).

At Webster Hall on February 23 at 7:30 p.m. (125 E. 11th Street, at Fourth Avenue, 212-353-1600).