The Killers’ new album “Day & Age” marks their return to the sublime dreamy pop that got the kids excited in the first place. With “Sam’s Town” they tried to please the guy in the crowd that made fun of their make-up and suits, what they didn’t realize though, was that he paid to get in. They already had the backwards hat frat crowd. I remember when I opened my door for a doofy R.A. my freshman year and he saw my Killers shirt and couldn’t stop talking about how great the album was.
That said, this time around The Killers do push their style in ways that do succeed wildly. From the slow burning opener “Losing Touch” that makes excellent use of left over “Bones” horns, to the dance ’till you drop beats and synths of “Human”, to the most complete return to Hot Fuss Form “Spaceman”. The Killers set the tone early, they are back, and then they give you a tour of Vegas with reckless abandon. Like on the cowboy steel drum funk that is “Joy Ride”, the song is unabashedly fun, but Brandon Flowers’ earnest vocals ground the debauchery with the wide eyed wonder of a designated driver caught in the spotlight.
On “Sam’s Town” it felt like The Killers were spinning their creative compass, on “Day and Age” it feels as if they’ve thrown it out and just headed towards a star. Brandon Flowers still uses his more “salt of the earth” lyrical approach but this time around the music itself towers as tall as his words. Where as on “Sam’s Town” there was no monolith of sound to sweep up those hometown ambitions. That means, yes, they use the power ballad more than once, “A Dustland Fairy Tale”, “This is Your Life”, and “The World We Live In”, where they sound more like Duran Duran than they ever have before, and strangely enough it’s a good thing. “Day & Age” offers up a smorgasbord of obvious influences of the band in each song like the decidedly Talking Heads-esque “I Can’t Stay” to the Curish “Goodnight Travel, Travel Well” that uses circular synth patterns that sound an awful lot like “Pictures of You”, but they also imprint their unique stamp on each song and even make songs that have great potential to seem gaudy or redundant, “Neon Tiger”, and made it sound somewhat fresh and new. Even the album art fits perfectly with the warm glow that the album leaves you with. A glow warm and good enough to let me finish this review with the phrase; “All killer, no filler” and mean it.
The Killers – Human (Ocelot Remix)
The Killers – The World We Live In
