Having unexpectedly hit stratospheric heights with the ultimately overrated ‘Hot Fuss’ album, THE KILLERS have a lot to live up to with forthcoming opus ‘Sam’s Town’.
Last year’s Glastonbury was the moment it all seemed to fall into place for them. With four great singles, a couple of good album tracks, and not much else, they blew 100,000 people away on the Pyramid Stage. They were imperious, rising to an occasion that many would have seen as beyond a band on their debut album. If only they had more songs to live up to the setting, they could easily emulate their heroes Oasis.
The good news is that, on the evidence of this first single, they’ve got the right idea. It’s not really a huge step forward aurally, and doesn’t even have much of a chorus, but takes the band’s anthemic strengths and cranks them up an extra notch. It takes the stadium swagger of ‘All These Things That I’ve Done’ to another level, leaving behind the Duran Duran-aping and setting its sights on bigger things.
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The synth flourishes are still there, but now they’re accompanied by shameless guitar heroics and, most notably, a startlingly different singing voice. Brandon Flowers has been talking up his Bruce Springsteen fixation in recent interviews, and The Boss’s influence is draped all over this like an American flag. When the song breaks down to Brandon acapella over a bubbling synth, then erupts into a storm of stadium bluster, it’s pure E-Street Band, all raw emotion and ambition. Tellingly, he’s also stopped singing about boyfriends looking like girlfriends, sounding almost jaded, but in a triumphant kind of way. Basically, they’ve grown up.
Bring on the world, they’re ready.
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