Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 02/10/06
Label: Mercury

The first Killers record, "Hot Fuss", sold five million copies. It didn't deserve to: at least half of it was nondescript and some of it (like "Andy, You're a Star") stank horribly. Hence these Las Vegans owe us a decent album, and with "Sam's Town" they provide it.

A huge part of The Killers' appeal is in their preposterousness. It's fitting, then, that "Sam's Town" comes equipped with an incomprehensible conceptual theme. The East End of London has recently been festooned with cryptic signs pointing toward "Sam's Town", and the huge fanfare that opens this record finds Brandon Flowers declaiming: "I see London, I see Sam's Town." Not for the first time with this guy, one wonders: what's he on about?

Things quickly pick up. "Enterlude" may feature words Flowers read on a hotel room key-card - "We hope you enjoy your stay" - but somehow they're infused with the same heartbreaking pathos with which he sang "he takes off her dress" or "don't you put me on the backburner". When Flowers sings with that catch in his voice, it gets you every time.

Normal service resumes. Much has been made of The Killers' flirtation with Americana, but that influences their artwork more than their music. For the most part, "Sam's Town" is built on the familiar bedrock of soaring synths, sweeping choruses and anguished vocals. "When We Were Young", a screamingly obvious hit single, sets a tone that sustains through the classically Killers-ish stomp of "Bling" (a tribute to Flowers' dad) and "For Reasons Unknown", an old song mystifyingly left off "Hot Fuss".

The album peaks with the arena-sized "Read My Mind" (oddly evocative of The Frank & Walters), and as it moves into its second half, fears of a "Hot Fuss"-style plummet are allayed by the menacing rock riffs of "Uncle Jonny", which effectively drown out a lyric so bad Bono could have written it. A more constructive U2 influence is evident in the glossy production provided by Alan Moulder and Flood, which perfectly suits The Killers' widescreen doom-pop.

Eventually, "Sam's Town" does peter out amid empty bluster ("This River Is Wild"), bridge-too-far stabs at country balladry ("The List") and a tacked-on, continuity-disrupting bonus track ("Where The White Boys Dance"). Yet by now The Killers have already delivered an album considerably richer than "Hot Fuss" and far more worthy of mainstream hugeness. Sure, it's gauche, but isn't that kind of the point of this band?

Until they write another song as good as "Mr Brightside" - itself an inspired rewrite of Bowie's "Queen Bitch" - everything The Killers do will of course carry a tinge of disappointment. But if that gold standard continues to ensure ambitious records like "Sam's Town", it's really not so tragic.

    by Niall O'Keeffe