MUSIC REVIEWS
The Killers - Sam's Town
David Allun Jones
A tour across the States helped enrich a deeper sense of respect and love for America according to The Killers leading to the questionable move of wiping away the eyeliner, growing out moustaches and downplaying the Day-Glo decadence of their Euro-obsessed past for a more muscular, epic definition of rock. As everyone awaits them to fall victim to the sophomore slump, though, it’s a risky move for our favorite Mormons to venture away from the new wave/ New Romantic sound that helped make them one of the more exciting groups in recent years to follow in the footsteps of mid-80’s Bruce Springsteen, especially if Sam’s Town shows obvious proof that they don’t copy The Boss all too well.
Brandon Flowers and company excel at shiny numbers where keyboards are the main feature and brilliant hooks are the buttery popcorn morsels that keep you involved. Their chose of sound was a neat tie-in to the neon-lit pomp that their hometown of Vegas was known for, so it’s no surprise that an ill-advised dip into Springsteen-esque Americana doesn’t match in style, especially when it shuns the synthesizers down into the mix and loses witty lines “I got soul but I’m not a soldier” to comparably weak references to mountains, rivers and highways. “Bling (Confession of a King)” is as bad and awkward as it sounds, meandering without much purpose and “Sam’s Town” ushers in the album like a windstorm but ends up lost in it’s puzzling angst and refusal to enjoy it’s grander moments. Flowers’ new vocal approach, a pinched yelp that routinely falls flat reaching for notes he obviously can’t reach, is yet another frustrating flaw that bears it’s stamp all over the album to the dismay of Hot Fuss lovers.
Thankfully all is not lost as The Killers are so embedded in their Depeche-Duran obsessions that they can’t keep their old selves’ down. “When We Were Young” is a fine marriage of Sam’s Town direction and their previous album’s shimmer grown as curled sine waves and a rush of bombast tattoo it’s fierce melodies in your brain. “Read My Mind” and “For Reasons Unknown” offer break-up laments with the oversized drama only they can achieve and future smash “Bones” twinkles under the glow of lasers, funked up horns and a Motown bounce as Flowers’ un-ironically croons “Don’t you wanna feel my bones on your bones?/ It’s only natural”.
Beefing up their music and manning up their image might’ve sounded like a good way to re-invent themselves (look forward to the album where they rock Adidas and start aping Afrikaa Bambaataa), but it only distracts them from giving us what we love: faux-English boys who play pansy instruments and deliver memorable hooks you can’t get enough of.
