The Killers break out the feathers and oddness

By Mark Kennedy
Associated Press
Tuesday, December 2, 2008

NEW YORK -- The Killers are back, and this time they’ve brought the weird. The Las Vegas quartet’s third studio album “Day & Age” sees them tapping into a little of their hometown’s oddness in both new image and sound.

They break out steel drums, harpsichords and horns. They sing about alien abduction. Their new stage outfits feature animal prints and plumage.

“The word ‘playful’ keeps coming up,” says Brandon Flowers, the singer and keyboardist. “We just really had fun. And I think it shows in the album.”

It’s a gaudy new direction for the synth-rock group that emerged in 2004 with the singles-driven “Hot Fuss” and disappointed some when they went to cowboy country with the follow-up, “Sam’s Town.”

Flowers — along with guitarist Dave Keuning, bassist Mark Stoermer and drummer Ronnie Vannucci — say the new album is their most pop-y and also most experimental.

“You can have both, right?” asks the 27-year-old, baby-faced Flowers during a recent interview alongside Keuning, the long-haired, 32-year-old yin to his bandmate’s yang.

The new 10-song CD has stuff you can dance to — the Tears For Fears-like “The World We Live In” and the funky “Joy Ride” — straight-ahead pop with “Losing Touch” and rock opera on “Goodnight, Travel Well.”

“The pop instinct is definitely glowing right now for us. It’s like pulsing,” says Flowers.

“It’s radiating,” Keuning agrees.

Speaking of glowing, what’s up with the song “Spaceman”? In it, Flowers sings about aliens abducting him from his bed, cutting him open and leaving “a strange impression in my head.”

“I was taken,” says Flowers, trying to be completely serious until he cracks up. “I can laugh about it now. It was kind of cathartic to sing about it.”

“I also was taken,” Keuning says. “Hours of my life are missing.”

Their goofiness bleeds into the first single, “Human,” in which Flowers asks “Are we human/Or are we dancer?” The song was inspired by a comment Hunter S. Thompson made about how America was raising a generation of dancers.

Then there’s the outfits: The Wyatt Earp mustaches from their last album are gone. But they haven’t returned to the pastels, suits and eyeliner of their debut.

“There are a lot of tiger prints. And feathers,” says Flowers. “There’s all kinds of things going on. It took 12 millions records sold to break out the feathers. I don’t know why.”

The Killers were born when Flowers came across Keuning’s classified ad seeking bandmates. It mentioned his love for the British group Oasis.

The band took it’s name from a New Order video and banged out hits like “Mr. Brightside,” “Somebody Told Me” and “All These Things That I’ve Done,” selling out stadiums and snagging Grammy nominations.

But all the fuss, they insist, hasn’t changed them. They recall their pre-fame lives — Keuning worked at a Banana Republic and Flowers was a hotel bellhop.

“I don’t feel different,” says Flowers. “I can still remember asking my boss for Friday off because we were playing at a bar. It’s the same. It’s just the bar is bigger.”


The Killers
Day & Age
(Island)
US release date: 25 November 2008
UK release date: 24 November 2008

Review by Michael Franco
PopMatters Associate Music Editor
http://www.popmatters.com/
December 2, 2008

Yes, Brandon… We Are Dancer

Before the release of the Killers’ sophomore album, 2006’s Sam’s Town, Brandon Flowers predicted that it would be “one of the best albums of the last 20 years”. For a band that left many feeling they had not earned their spurs before achieving superstardom, the comment was an irresistible invitation to pummel Flowers for artistic hubris. And many critics did just that, especially since Sam’s Town—while containing some undeniable classics—was an uneven affair, capturing the band juggling diverse influences, sometimes to awkward effect.

Flowers’ excitement, however, was understandable. He was under the spell of Springsteen and U2, and the band tried, quite obviously, to create the same epic intensity in the songs on Sam’s Town. The two “hits” from the album, “When You Were Young” and “Read My Mind”, succeeded in evoking that feeling of epiphany that the Boss and Bono specialize in, that feeling of transcendence that one only experiences in fleeting moments at Mass or when falling in love or, well, when drunk and loading up the jukebox.

And yet, Flowers was still faulted for mixing his metaphors and gushing like a schoolgirl and managing to sound only like the young Springsteen, the one who confused verbosity with profundity. But so what if, technically, you couldn’t burn down the highway skyline if you were riding on a body of water? That was a kick-ass tune! And can you really fault a guy for trying to share his epiphany with the masses? Saul of Tarsus did the same, and he was canonized.

So with the release of the Killers’ latest album, Day & Age, the obvious question is: will Flowers and company continue to chase the panoramic, mythic grandeur of Springsteen and U2, critics be damned? Or, having experienced the sting of critical backlash, will they play it safe and make a collection of those dance floor ditties they seem to churn out with ease?

The answer isn’t quite so easy. On the surface, the answer would seem to be that the Killers are retreating from their epic ambitions and heading for safer ground. Those the-whole-world-depends-on-this-moment lyrics are largely missing, as are those majestic climaxes and crescendos that were everywhere on Sam’s Town. Indeed, Day & Age is an album devoid of pomposity, both lyrically and sonically. That’s not to say the album doesn’t have its climactic moments—the completely sublime “A Dustland Fairytale” has all of those qualities—but they’re certainly fewer.

Flowers seems to concede as much in the first single from the album, “Human”. “Give my regards to soul and romance,” he sings, “They always did the best they could.” Is this an admission that all that lyrical loftiness was misguided? Or is this just a nonsense line, such as the lines “Are we human? / Or are we dancer?”, which, apparently, are a reference to Hunter S. Thompson?

To say, however, that Flowers and the Killers cowered artistically would not only be a complete mischaracterization, it would also miss the point entirely. The inescapable conclusion is this: Day & Age is the most consistent, confident album the Killers have created so far. While there are just as many influences floating through this album as there were on Hot Fuss and Sam’s Town, they have finally congealed into a unified whole.

To be sure, there are traces of Low-era Bowie, the Cure, the Talking Heads, the Jam, and even Roxy Music, but there aren’t any songs here that sound like painfully-calculated imitations of a specific band. Instead, three albums into their career, the Killers have finally digested their influences and settled into their own sound. So, if anything, this is the quartet’s boldest album, seeing them finally step out from behind their record collection and asserting themselves as a creative force.

While the Killers have always straddled the muddy line between a “dance” band and a “rock” band (the thin distinction warrants the quotation marks since rock music was always intended to be dance music), Day & Age definitely sees them leaning towards the former. In place of the acute intensity the band aimed for the last time around is groove, pulse, and –- dare it be said -– funk.

“Joy Ride”, for example, begins with a galloping bassline reminiscent of Roxy Music’s “The Space Between” before settling into a dance track that actually manages to sound soulful, thanks to some well-placed saxophone. Yes, saxophone –- and it appears throughout the album, such as on the opener “Losing Touch”, which also sounds like it emerged from that late ‘70s/early ‘80s period that was trying to combine the often competing ethos of disco, punk, and soul.

Elsewhere, it sounds like the boys have been listening to that rather vaporous genre known as world music. The most obvious proof of that is “I Can’t Stay”, the song that will, without doubt, elicit the most head scratches. If you’ve ever wondered what the Killers would sound like as the house band on a Carnival Cruise Line, this is your answer. Once the initial “WTF?” moment passes, the song is actually an enjoyable, breezy little ditty. Utterly disposable, yes, but that’s part of its charm.

The bulk of the album, though, sees the Killers doing what they do best: crafting new wave dance songs that sound like lost classics from the ‘80s. “Spaceman”, “Neon Tiger”, and “Human” are all worthy of a John Hughes soundtrack, had they been written 25 years earlier. Synthy, poppy, and often touching, they are all irresistible pop confections.

For those, however, who love the dreamy-eyed Brandon Flowers and yearn for those overpowering moments, don’t despair. Flowers just can’t help himself when it comes to certain themes, and on “A Dustland Fairytale” he crafts yet another tale of young suitor-as-Messiah, swooping down to rescue a naïve maiden, only to reveal later that, yes, he is nothing but a man with faults. Flowers sets the scene by describing a “slick chrome American prince” and a “blue jean serenade” before crying “’Moon River’, what did you do to me?” As the song reaches its emotional summit, it’s decades later and the couple is desperately trying to keep the fire alive: “Cinderella don’t you go to sleep… don’t you know the kingdom’s under siege?”

And this is what makes the Killers so endearing, despite all their faults as a band. Their affection for everything they pour into their music, from the million and one musical influences to the shameless lyrical homages to the awkward literary references, is so sincere it can’t help but be charming.

So yes, Brandon… we are dancer.



The Killers enter a new 'Day & Age'


Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times

The Killers' third studio album, "Day & Age," is their furthest-reaching yet: a mélange of Roxy Music saxophone pomp, roller-rink disco and jittery synth rave-ups supporting Brandon Flowers' newly surrealist lyrics.




'Sam's Town' drew some flak, but the band is talking back as it plays around with its sound (and facial hair).

By August Brown
The Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com
November 29, 2008

When the Killers' singer Brandon Flowers crossed the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood before a recent taping of " Jimmy Kimmel Live," he displayed the first sign that the band was beginning anew: He lacked a mustache.

Around the time of the Killers' 2006 second album, "Sam's Town," Flowers grew a thick push broom worthy of that record's grandiloquent Americana. Drummer Ronnie Vannucci one-upped him with a fearsome Fu Manchu, and bassist Mark Stoermer let his blond scruff run wild. That album's unapologetic Springsteen-philia proved something of a critical brick, however, and Flowers' pronouncement that "Sam's Town" was "one of the best albums in the past 20 years" made the record ripe for dissenting opinions.

Those whiskers are gone now, and Flowers' preferred accessory for his "Kimmel" performance was a natty schoolboy jacket with feather epaulets. Guitarist Dave Keuning wore a barely there synthetic tiger-print shirt, and the band's stage setup was littered with glowing faux palm trees befitting its hometown of Las Vegas. The Killers' third studio album, "Day & Age," released Tuesday, is their furthest-reaching yet: a mélange of Roxy Music saxophone pomp, roller-rink disco and jittery synth rave-ups supporting Flowers' newly surrealist lyrics.

Rock music is down to maybe a half-dozen bands who consistently reinvent themselves and still go platinum each time. But after their grand ambitions for "Sam's Town" met a fairly resounding shrug from tastemakers -- and moved about half of "Hot Fuss' " 3 million copies in the U.S. -- the question remains: Will the Killers' second attempt at an aesthetic makeover keep them in that ever-rarer clique?

"I let [those criticisms] affect me a lot," Flowers said. "But one thing we gained from it was that when we came back to the towns where those reviews were, we'd just play louder and we became a really great live band. It took that confidence to do what we did with this album."

In some ways, "Day & Age" feels like a direct riposte to the earnest and old-fashioned American arena rock ideals behind "Sam's Town." The new single "Human," a pillowy and remix-ready sliver of synth-pop, has already yielded one of 2008's most head-scratching and grammatically suspect choruses, now familiar to anyone who has spent time with rock radio recently: "Are we human / or are we dancer?"

Other lyrics seem to offer eulogies for the band's turn at whiskey-and-highways mythology, like when Flowers asks to "Give my regards to soul and romance, they always did the best they could," or in "Spaceman," in which Flowers ironically reassures himself that "The song-maker says it ain't so bad." On "Day & Age's" first track, "Losing Touch," Flowers more directly taunts the band's skeptics: "You go run and tell your friends I'm losing touch / Fill their heads with rumors of impending doom / It must be true."

But despite "Day & Age's" critical ruminations, the band's famed self-assurance seems to have survived the reception of "Sam's Town" intact.

"I love the challenge of playing to naysayers," drummer Vannucci said. "I love that I can drive it home and make believers out of people."

The band usually doesn't have to try hard to do so: Upon striding into the Roosevelt lobby, Vannucci was instantly encircled by a small pack of starry-eyed autograph seekers. Between songs at the "Kimmel" performance later that day, Flowers said to the crowd, "We only want to please you," reaffirming the idea that "Day & Age's" pointedly eclectic genre-hopping still aims straight at the audience's pop pleasure centers. The laser-sharp funk bass lines of "Joy Ride" and margarita-ready bossa nova of "I Can't Stay" shouldn't have any business being on the same record, but the Killers have spent enough time on the pop charts to wrangle a worthy single from any stray arrangement idea. On the recent B-sides collection "Sawdust," it even turned a cover of the notoriously dour Joy Division song "Shadowplay" into a charting mainstream rock hit.

"There's a big misconception that you can't be artistic or sophisticated and be big," Flowers said. "We should be praised for being on alternative radio and pop radio and doing the things that we do. It's not like anything else."

Part of the credit for the album's coherence belongs to new producer Stuart Price, who midwifed the record at the band's new home studio five minutes off the Vegas Strip. The band recorded "Sam's Town" in a studio located in the heart of the Palms Casino, a coolly designed place that Flowers described as having "weird ideas about what a couch should be."

The new home studio sports the more metaphorically apt name Battle Born, taken from the Nevada state flag. It's a functional symbol of a band trying to slough off expectations while nursing open ambitions to remain one of the biggest acts in rock music. The band doesn't really have a peer in the American rock scene that can claim similar platinum sales and ambitions to resurrect Dire Straits as a hip influence.

Eyes to the future

Naturally, the band's label, Island Records, has a lot riding on the Killers' ability to thread that needle, especially after losing the band's A&R representative, Rob Stevenson, to a post leading Virgin Records in the U.S.

" 'Day & Age' is yet another brilliant album from a band I believe is poised to become the biggest and best in the world," said Island Def Jam Music Group chairman Antonio "L.A." Reid. "The Killers continue to make me excited about the future of rock music."

The 27-year-old Flowers also has the future of a young family to look out for. His wife, Tana, gave birth to a son last year, and the frequently eyelinered singer of a band who's written at length about cocaine blues ("Uncle Jonny") and gender-swapping hookups ("Somebody Told Me") is said to enjoy an unusually idyllic home life in Vegas.

Flowers' onstage presence as a fashion-flaunting rake is mercurial, however. Along with his stable young family, he's quite possibly America's hippest Mormon rock singer. Flowers makes a point of keeping his faith -- and his opinions on his church's recent financial support of Proposition 8, which eliminated the right of same-sex couples to marry in California -- private and separate from his band's limelight.

"I'm going to stop you right now," Flowers said, with a sheepish laugh and a few beats of shifting in the Roosevelt lobby's leather chairs, when asked his thoughts about the controversial ballot initiative. "It's strange to be in a position to be asked these things and that anyone would care what I have to say."

Strange position or not, Flowers' ideas about pushing rock music forward in a market of ever-dwindling album sales are some of the few systems that still seem to be working. For all the make-or-break anxiety about "Day & Age," the band made a point to carve out time for its third Christmas-themed single for (RED)WIRE, a new subscription-based music service benefiting HIV efforts in Africa. Fashions, genres and lyrics about depressed neon felines come and go, but the annual holiday novelty hit is one thing that the Killers will never, ever waver on.

"As long as we're going, we'll have a new Christmas song every December," Flowers said. Vannucci agreed: "You know that things are dark if we don't have a Christmas single."

Brown is a Times staff writer.

august.brown@latimes.com