Album Review- The Killers

 The Killers have always been a chameleonic band (less kind critics might use harsher words). It started with a debut that imagine some kind of New Wave Duran Duran/Smiths/Depeche Mode amalgam. They would quickly morph into an imitation of Joshua Tree-era U2. The band went into some wilderness years but having a guest appearance from Lindsey Buckingham was a clue to what they were trying to do.

You don’t have to listen to Pressure Machine for very long to know who they’re mimicking. If one didn’t know any better, one would insist that this must be a band of 19 year olds who recorded the album after a weekend of listening to nothing but Nebraska and The River.

Now, wanting to write songs like classic Springsteen isn’t a bad thing (to me, anyway. Others may want to avoid this album just because of that). It was a cottage industry in the 80s (and sadly despite loud critical plaudits, I doubt many of those artists have much familiarity within the under 40 crowd). The Boss not only looms over even some very successful artists (Mellencamp, Ethridge, Earle to name three) but much of the 21st Century Indie crowd. Brian Fallon (to name one artist) has had a Springsteen-esque career both solo and with the Gaslight Anthem. Even Bruce’s career seems to be defined by his legacy, and every new album confined by those parameters.

So that element is not necessarily a deal breaker for me, but I can understand why it might be for some. Ostensibly, it is a concept album about Brandon Flowers childhood and teenage years in Nephi, Utah. It could be, as Flowers suggests a mix of Sherwood Anderson’s Winesberg, Ohio and NPR’s This American Life. Flowers no doubt has the conviction to pull this off and co-writer Sam Rado has genre-hopped plenty in the band Foxygen.

Working against them is that Flowers has chosen 30 second snippets to open his songs to tie the concept together. That isn’t great for repeated listening. These would be better as separate tracks or perhaps at the end of the song.

Another strike is the album starts off weak. Opening track West Hills doesn’t quite hit the mark. Second track Quiet Town starts with some clunky lyrics and pales in comparison to the Born in the USA deep cuts it riffs off of. But things are turning around by song's end, and now we are at Terrible Thing- an “Atlantic City” without nuance- but as a listener, you begin to be drawn in.

Now, I don’t think it reaches transcendent levels until Track 7 “In The Car Outside” sounds like a Killers anthem. There’s elements of the Boss in there, sure, but they are no longer out front. Track 8 “In Another Life” follows and is as good as (or better).

Most everything else falls somewhere between. Things often don’t quite reach the level of “Glory Days”, but the small town stories generally connect more often than not. “Runaway Horses” adds Phoebe Bridgers to such a good effect, you might not tell it’s otherwise a rewrite of “Free Fallin”. “Desperate Things” definitely has a “Johnny 99” feeling- it’s slow pace builds tension though it may not help repeat listening.

Overall, it’s more good than bad, with the album’s high points putting it over the threshold. At this moment, it stands as a worthy follow up to last year’s Imploding the Mirage and its ambitions more positive than not.

2021 - Island