The Killers have steadily progressed from Anglophile indie scenesters with a knack of a great chorus through to the panoramic expanses of the American dustbowl on second album Sams Town. With the release of their new album Day and Age they now have the chance to cement their status as one of the biggest bands in the world.
Difficult Third Album?
The third album is always a tricky one for bands. Do they carry on with more of the same or do they try to expand their horizons? The Killers had already took care of this problem with their first two albums Hot Fuzz and Sams Town. By releasing two albums so sonically different they have left the path wide open for their third.
Day and Age sees a return of sorts to the glamourous indie rock and roll of the first album. From the off, "Losing Touch" places them firmly on the glam highway. This time though, instead of sounding like New Order lost in Las Vegas they sound like themselves. Brandon and company have disovered their own sound and are ready to take it to the masses.
The first single "Human" signals an attempt of sorts at new romanticism, that age old scene that was huge in the eighties. It is maybe this that makes The Killers so universal. Here is a band that hails from Las Vegas who are besotted with 1980's British pop and indie music yet also like to explore their roots with Springsteen epics.
On paper it shouldn't work and it is testament to the band that they manage it. "Human" shimmers like its 1982 with lyrics that allude to that great American author Hunter S Thompson.
Learning From Hot Fuzz And Sams Town
From here on in the album cannot fail to grab attention. Never taking the obvious route the band are more confident in using instruments that shouldn't work and adding it to what they have done before. The dustbowl epics of Sams Town are revisited with "A Dustland Fairytale", David Bowie is evoked in "Spaceman" but perhaps the greatest surprise the last song.
After forty minutes of The Killers doing what they do best, sharp pop songs with an edge and unbeatable chorus, they decide to finish the album with a six minute epic dirge (for want of a better word, although this may not even be right). It is possibly Brandons most personal song to date and after being elevated to all the bright places he could offer us leaves us low in despair. Only a band as brave as The Killers could pull it off.
 |
