Day & Age

by

The Killers

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The Killers have a special place in my heart. They excel at writing engaging lyrics, creating passionate musical riffs, and forming choruses that are sometimes so good they're magical: "Bling (Confessions of a King)" and "Read My Mind," from Sam's Town, or "Mr Brightside" or "Smile Like You Mean It" from Hot Fuss.

It's safe to say I had huge expectations from Day & Age. Most of the tracks met them, but a few were genuine disappointments.

I was ready to accept a new style and sound from the Killers in Day & Age, based on their transformation from Hot Fuss to Sam's Town, as well as their live performance of "Human," on Saturday Night Live in the fall of 2008. Based on Human, I was expecting an album with more synth-pop influence and maybe even an electronic vibe.

While there is a significant synth feel to some of the tracks, The Killers have thrown in dance beats, some reggae influence, and even a synthetic harpsichord (This Is Your Life) into the album. It is a mash-up of musical styles that at times feels too much like a collage of influences instead of a finished album, but on my third listen I think they actually did pretty well over all. If you want a seamless album that traverses from song to song effortlessly, Day and Age will disappoint you. If you want a strange, intelligent, and always entertaining collection of songs that defy classification to a specific genre, this is a great choice.

"Human," is my favorite track, a song which I initially wrote off as having silly lyrics, until I read this quote from Flowers: "It's taken from a quote by [author Hunter S.] Thompson. 'We're raising a generation of dancers,' and I took it and ran. I guess it bothers people that it's not grammatically correct, but I think I'm allowed to do whatever I want," he laughed. " 'Denser'? I hadn't heard that one. I don't like 'denser.' " (from the MTV webpage)

"Losing Touch," "Spaceman," and "This Is Your Life," are also fantastic.

That said, there are some major losers in this collection.

Specifically, "I Can't Stay," actually made me angry listening to it. Incorporating steel drum into a song that sounds like the worst of the Beach Boys mashed-up with 80s pop made me wonder if I had entered a nightmare where the Killers were transforming into in a bubble-gum pop band. They could have left this track off the album in my opinion.

Thankfully, after the awful "I can't stay," they launch into "Neon Tiger," which is a tight little track and sounds like the Killers I know and love. However, the reprieve is short lived.

The next track, "The World We Live In," is again reminiscent of 80s pop, with a beat that I would expect from an Annie Lennox single from the early nineties. Really solid lyrics get lost in the dreary beat and uninspired instrumentation.

A shorter album than Hot Fuss (14 tracks) and Sam's Town (12 tracks), Day & Age at a mere 10 tracks feels a lot less 'dense,' than either of their first two offerings. 10 tracks minus a couple duds leaves you with only about 7-8 songs worth listening to. If you include Sawdust with it's 18 tracks (some of which are remixes or duplicates) this is easily the lightest offering to date from the Killers. That might not be a big deal if the quality of each song was very high, but that isn't the case in my opinion.

I would give this album 3.5 stars, but chose to round it up, because some of the songs are so good. If you're a Killers fan, it's a must buy. If you're new to the Killers, get Hot Fuss instead, and follow that up with Sam's Town, then Day & Age, and then Sawdust.

I found Nathan's review (the reviewer from Oak Park) to very closely follow my thoughts on this record.

I thought there were some very good lyrics as well as some pretty good tracks (including the first 3) on the record.

The last track (Goodnight, Travel well), could have been a very good epic track with the start, however could have been much more and is one of the less-interesting post-6-minute tracks I have heard in some time. It had some good sounds, but a track that long really need to have a couple different parts with a (hopefully) interesting transition.

The production and mixing of an album can sometimes greatly affect it, if not make or break it. I found the production of Hot Fuss to more evenly mixed between the rough sound of guitars and conventional bass/drumming and a highly polished synth-pop record.

Unfortunately, I though this record had too much studio work for its own good. I would have given it a four without the overproduction I found it had.

It would be interesting to know if the band was talked into the over-the-top synthetic feel or if they wanted the new direction.

I found it to be worth the $4 I paid for MP3s, but maybe not more.