Yesterday I learned that a new Killers album came out 41 whole entire days ago and nobody on the entire internet told me. Sometimes I don’t even know.
I suppose you could call me a Killers superfan. Not in a creepy stalker way. I don’t know all the band members’ names, and I probably wouldn’t even remember Brandon’s if his last name weren’t Flowers and he didn’t have side projects. I have a terrible brain for names and dates–of actors, band members, b-sides–so I couldn’t tell you a single thing about them as people, but I haven’t heard anything by the Killers that I don’t love.
I’ve found over the years that a lot of people get resentful when a band doesn’t sound the same on later albums. People get hooked on what a debut sounds and feels like, and I get it. I love debut albums: so many years of writing, refining, and feeling get concentrated into those first songs. Debut albums are gifts from the heart, and many of my all-time favorite albums are a band’s debut, a subject definitely worthy of more posts.
No matter how much I love a band’s sound, I eventually get tired of hearing more of the same. Therefore I love it when I find artists that can put out great sounds that defy categorization, where each album has its own vibe that isn’t bound to previous sounds. The Killers is one of those bands and I can’t get enough of how each album has its own internal coherence that doesn’t GAF about what came before or what people expect from them. (Sidebar: Jets to Brazil and Amy Ray both have this talent and I also adore them for it.) This new album is just the uplift I needed 6 months into a pandemic; sorry, not sorry if you can’t get past the fact that it’s not one hundred percent the new new wave electronica of their early days.
Besides my addiction to guitars and growly tenors, the thing I love most about the Killers is the strong impression that their experiences growing up in Nevada were very much like mine growing up in Indiana. Not since Live’s songs about York, PA, have I felt so much like a musician knows so well what it’s like to grow up among trailers, fields, meth heads, diners and roads to nowhere. These are the songs for those of us who did everything we could to leave where we were, and I’m always here for it.
If I don’t get out of this town, I just might be the one who finally burns it down.