Sam's Town

by

The Killers

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When I first played this album I wasn't quite sure what to think. Brandon Flowers' voice sounds markedly thinner and more waver-y at points than it does on Hot Fuss. The immediate grandeur of the material, bookmarked as it is with the ornate, sometimes frilly intro / outtro combination, sets up this sophomore followup for polarizing reactions from the band's fans.

There were only one or two immediate tunes that caught me. I nervously listened to the album again. And a third time. And it is awesome. I do have some misgivings about the way it is recorded. (Unlike the band's stunning debut, there are some songs on Sam's Town that I will outright skip--they try too hard or just don't work for me. And there are some noticeable pitch problems with the vocals--baffling on a major-label, Flood-produced album.) But yet. It has not left my car stereo. There is some great, inspired work here. Stuff that draws me into its energetic, wistful, stylized vibe as skillfully as anything on Hot Fuss. Stuff that deserves repeated exploration. Stuff that rekindles my excitement about music.

This album is like a second date: you realize that your new crush has flaws you hadn't noticed the first time around, but you're just that much more endeared. And flustered. And optimistic for the future.

Of all the retro eighties synth-pop bands that have been trying to resurrect the sound in recent years, The Killers were the only ones that made songs that were listenable. The key to their success was they treaded lightly on the synthesizer sound while Brandon Flowers sang grandiose lyrics which where at heart kind of quirky. Some something happened between that first album and their follow up Sam's Town and that change can be summed up in a name: Bruce Springsteen.

Now I would never be against anyone who would like to model their sound after the Boss, but when your original sound is far from it and works for you, I'm not sure it would be that good a decision to make that drastic change. Plus it hasn't been that good of a summer for those making grand predictions for their next album (see Angels and Airwaves trying to channel U2 and Ludacris claiming his latest album being the one that will make everyone take him serious). And when Flowers claimed the album was influenced by Springsteen, apparently he only listened to albums with "Born" in the title because the album sounds like it's trying to recreate the bombast of Springsteen's most commercially successful albums. So on Sam's Town gone are the quirky lyrics, unless you count the absurdly titled Bling (Confessions of a King), replaced by stories of Americana seen through those that live in Las Vegas.

With all the Springsteen talk, the album is bookmarked by a pair of songs that sound right out of Moulin Rouge with the Enterlude and Exitlude with their lounge act feel. Oddly enough, that album doesn't even start with the Enterlude, instead it starts with the title track, the band's first attempted to recreate a Springsteen arena rock anthem. But then for some reason during the break they have a chorus start singing, "I see London." Maybe I'm just too sophomoric, but I can' imagine anyone hearing the song for the first time and not think, "I see France" will be the next line.

There is a section in the middle of the album where the band goes back to its roots with eighties sounding songs that are more David Bowie than Springsteen starting with For Reasons Unknown, Read My Mind, Bones, and My List but are missing the fun lyrics that set the band apart from other bands of the genre, past and present. Bones itself is a morbidly creepy song which sentiment will most like only be increased by the Tim Burton directed video. But in the middle is the closest song the band comes to anything on Hot Fuss with Uncle Johnny. The crushing guitars of the song suggest something darker than the band has ever done and definitely doesn't come from Springsteen but the choir at the end is reminiscent of the one at the end of All These Things I've Done. Unfortunately the band doesn't hide the fact the rest of the album is mediocre at best.