Though frontman Brandon Flowers shaved off the ridiculous Freddie Mercury-style \u2018stache, he kept everything else that made The Killers the height of too muchery. This means Day & Age<\/i> is awash in theatrical guitars, overreaching glam influences, torpedoing synthesizers, and a lyrical content kitschy enough to screenwrite the entire next season of Knight Rider<\/i>. He\u2019s still penning Springsteenian tales of \u201cheadlights on the highway,\u201d \u201crattlesnakes and romance,\u201d and, in \u201cDustland Fairytale,\u201d Cinderella\u2019s love affair with a \u201cslick chrome American prince.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the unsurprisingly droll songwriting, Flowers has finally settled back in a gilded throne of discreet confidence. He sounds less eager to prove the band\u2019s merit this time around, singing \u201cLosing Touch\u201d with an aptly aloof and passive-aggressive tremor as thrilling pseudo-horns detonate behind him. Here the Killers\u2019 shtick becomes less of a novelty and more of a calculated atmospheric trick: gorgeous dance-rock synths turn into lush violin-replicating swooshes in \u201cHuman,\u201d instead of the insane bravado of their Guitar Hero<\/i>-favored hit, \u201cWhen You Were Young,\u201d while drummer Ronnie Vannucci stampedes across the Nevada desert.<\/p>\n
In \u201cSpaceman,\u201d Flowers proves that his inordinate storytelling can be a slick melodic treat. Over a jaunty acoustic guitar rhythm, he narrates a tale of alien abduction. When he sings about \u201czipping white laser beams,\u201d he rivals the appealing grandiosity of Mercury singing about laser beams in \u201cKiller Queen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Where Sam\u2019s Town<\/i> took us out into the scorching Las Vegas sand dunes, full of twisters, desolate highways, and theosophical allusions, Day & Age<\/i> takes us to the same place during nightfall, where a cool wind gently blows and swaddles each song in opulent, flowing synth-strings. And while Flowers maintains his garish dancer\u2019s side, he also lets out his human side. Which was exactly what he needed to do to find the perfect middle ground between Hot Fuss<\/i>\u2019 pop rock and Sam\u2019s Town<\/i>\u2019s highway slush.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":29780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7785],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-41390","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-killers","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41390"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}