The Killers build on the foundation of their first two records to come up with a synth-disco diamond
The Killers go about their business on third album
Album number three. It’s the one that makes you or breaks you, in the long run. If you made it big with your debut, then got a little bit weird and expectation-defying with your sophomore effort — an incredibly common trope to follow, that one — then the third time had better be the charm, or in the incredibly fickle world of pop music, your 15 minutes might be deemed past.
Did Brandon Flowers and the Killers consider any of this when making “Day & Age,” their nigh-on-brilliant third album? I find as much highly unlikely. Musicians — if they’re actually musicians, and not dolts who merely want to be famous, adored, rich and the like — tend to center their concern on the mechanics of what they do (songwriting, performance, production) and not the big pop-pundit picture. Worrying about how what you’re doing is likely to be received is a sure-fire way to ensure coming across stiff, contrived, manipulative and lacking in integrity. You know — like the majority of the refuse you might have witnessed being honored during Sunday evening’s wretched
American Music Awards ceremony.
Nah, Flowers and Co. were just getting on with it, going about the business of self-improvement, the whittling away at the rough surrounding the diamond, which is what the business of being a musician is all about. “Day & Age,” as it turns out, is indeed a diamond, omitting as it does the lack of editing and precision that marred debut “Hot Fuss” and the self-consciousness never quite held at bay during ambitious-but-flawed follow-up “Sam’s Town.”
Glitz and cheese are the order of the day, and that, for once, is not a bad thing. If “Sam’s Town” wanted to be a handful of gritty, dry earth, “Day & Age” is a mirror ball refracting light above a dancefloor. The nods to the synth-disco of the ’80s that Flowers so clearly loves — er, the Pet Shop Boys and, ahem, probably Howard Jones and the Human League, too — are so abundant that one stops noticing them almost immediately. That’s good, because they aren’t really what matters here, just as they aren’t what make the best David Bowie albums significant. “Day & Age” is about songs, hooks, the big emotional pay-offs that Flowers is, like an apprentice Bono, a master at delivering.
The album has 10 such moments, which may be partly due to the collaborative efforts of producer Stuart Price, but is just as likely the result of four musicians firing on all cylinders simultaneously.
“Losing Touch” opens the album with grandeur, and an unlikely blend of a Springsteen-ish piano figure and some layered R&B-flavored horns. Goofy synthesizers are then woven into the mix, and the reason we’re bothering with any of this — Flowers’ immediately striking melody and his dramatic delivery of it — begins to work its magic. There are no accidents here. The song is smartly paced, reveals itself along a well-planned emotional arc and has clearly been orchestrated to get a rise out of you. It succeeds.
That out of the way, we’re straight into first single “Human,” the most obvious nod to ’80s synth-pop that Flowers will ever get away with. This is fey alt-disco, make no mistake, like Adam & the Ants bringing its layered drum march aptitude to a Pet Shop Boys gig. I found myself amazed by my own tolerance for this, then realized why I was feeing so forgiving — again, it’s the quality of composition. Simple pop music that works is not arrived at simply; it is indeed the result of craft. Just ask Phil Spector. Better yet, ask Flowers. Goofy lyrics aside, he has nailed the recipe with “Human.”
“Spaceman” is another winner, and again, new wave is the precedent-setter here, the bubbling synths and keyboard strings providing rhythmic momentum and ambient candy, respectively. As bizarre as this might sound, the tune suggests “Avalon”-era Roxy Music and, no kidding, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, in equal measure. The chorus is shameless, pure candy, and doubtless, you’ll gorge yourself.
As full-length albums should, “Day & Age” gets better as it goes along, so that it ends at its highest point, in an emotional and sonic landscape different than the one it started out in. “I Can’t Stay” kicks off the slide down the other side of the album’s mountain, and introduces a mild calypso feel that absolutely should not work, but does. Why? I’m not sure, but probably because the song is delivered with irony, a wink rather than a stern and self-important countenance.
Then it’s time for the strongest songwriting and collective performances of the bunch, with “Neon Tiger” suggesting the majesty of the Killers in concert, all heads thrown back, arms aloft, lost in the glimmer of pop ecstasy. “The World We Live In” sounds like the Cure covering Queen’s “Radio Ga Ga,” and is surprisingly disarming, considering. There’s the horns again, bobbing and weaving between the through-composed guitar lines, subtly effective as they are.
All of this ends up being foreplay, a courting procedure leading up to the album-closer, “Goodnight, Travel Well,” a song about death that arrives at the disco party to remind all the revelers that, guess what, the joke will ultimately be on you, no matter how smartly turned out in your new outfit you might be.
This serves to reflect back on the nine songs that precede it, providing retroactive context for all that we’ve heard. It’s an absolutely masterful piece of manipulation and is likely the most important piece the Killers have come up with to date.
Is it possible for pop to be at once dumb, danceable and substantive? “Day & Age” suggests that, indeed, it is.
CD Review
The Killers Day & Age
[Island]
★★★½
(Out of four)
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Reader comments