The KillersSam’s TownGrade: B-
After riding the new wave of success thanks to such hits as “Somebody Told Me” and “Mr. Brightside,” Las Vegas quartet, The Killers, return with Sam’s Town, a tribute to the glitz and decadence of their hometown as well as a shout-out to Bruce Springsteen.
What The Killers attempt to do on Sam’s Town is capture the essence of the American spirit, no matter how sexed up, drugged up, or screwed up it may be. Such tracks as “Uncle Jonny” illustrate this point.
“While everybody refrained, my Uncle Jonny did cocaine.”
The track presents a pretty clear view of the desperation and desolation of some of America’s most colorful characters.
From the title track to the album’s “Exitlude,” The Killers teeter-totter between nifty 80’s melodies reminiscent of The Cars, particularly on “Sam’s Town,” and Bruce Springsteen-like lyrical nods such as “My brother, he was born on the Fourth of July” and “We’re burning up the highway skyline on the back of a hurricane.” Like Rolling Stone and Blender Magazine will tell you, the lead single, “When You Were Young,” sounds more than just a little like Springsteen’s “Born to Run” except with synthesizers and frontman Brandon Flowers’ operatic vocal stylings.
Just like on their debut, Hot Fuss, The Killers definitely push the theatricality to the limits whether it’s the horns and dramatic baritone vocals that open the delightful “Bones” or the soaring guitar and high-pitched harmonizing on “When You Were Young.” The band treats every song like a mini play in which ridiculous changes in pitch and tone are accepted, and it’s okay to do a little bit of posturing and posing. In fact, it’s hard not to draw some comparisons to Queen, especially after you see Brandon Flowers on stage or on TV prancing around while the rest of the boys grit their teeth and put on their game faces for the audience. On the album, the band’s got everything covered just as well from repetitive rockers to gentler songs worthy of relaxing to like “Read My Mind.”
But wait just a minute. They’re not off the hook yet. Sam’s Town definitely has its flaws. The problem is twofold. To begin with, if the band was trying to live up to their debut, they fall pretty short. First of all, beyond the lead single and “Bones,” nothing particularly radio-friendly appears on the album. Even “Bones” sounds like nothing but a leftover from Hot Fuss or even a demo that the band ditched. On top of that, whereas the first half of Hot Fuss (the half filled with singles) easily sauntered into the superior second half (the more independent, experimental half), all of Sam’s Town stumbles, rising and falling in an attempt to reach peaks without ever actually meeting them.
Secondly, something vitally important is curiously absent from even the best of the songs: passion. Granted, while Flowers never had what people might call an emotionally convincing voice, he at least sounded like he stood by what he said regardless of how strange it sounded (remember “Somebody Told Me”? “Somebody told me that you had a boyfriend who looked like a girlfriend…”). Now, it seems as though the band is merely going through the motions of being an interesting group that nearly everyone likes.
For a band from Las Vegas, the boys are taking themselves too seriously.