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The Killers Commit a Misdemeanor at Best

Day & Age comes well after its day and age.

The Killers

Day & Age

Released on Nov 24, 2008

2004 was a strange year.  George W. Bush was reelected.  The Red Sox won the world series.  And a quartet led by a Mormon from Vegas was topping every rock and pop chart with all sorts of eyeliner-ridden ruckus you don’t want to admit you were into.  The Killers’ Hot Fuss signaled a return to radio for indie rock.  2006’s sophomorically-slumping, Springsteen-stealing Sam’s Town didn’t so much let us down as much as confirm that if you could play four chords, sound heartbroken, and grow a mustache, you could be a rock star.

And so The Killers have a lot of space to make up for.  It’s a good thing that their newest release, Day & Age, revolves mostly around that: space.  Rocketing into the stratosphere, Brandon Flowers leads the band into an array of Bowie-channeling over-the-topness that one expects when working with Stuart Price (go-to producer for the 80’s synth sound).  The lead track, “Losing Touch,” signals a loss of touch with the grittier Sam’s Town sound; a saxophone lead, funky drive train, and a healthy dose of synth lay out a background to Flowers’ ever-inconsistent and meaningless lyrics.

“Human,” the first single off the record, could irritate you enough with the much-gossiped about line, “Are we human?  Or are we dancer?”  But does anyone expect proper grammar from a band that inserts lines like this in order to rip on a Hunter S. Thompson critique (he was quoted as saying that America is raising a generation of dancers)?  Let’s get to the meat of things instead of hanging a judgment on literary iconography. 

Each copy of Day & Age should come with its own John Travolta.  Not only are the majority of the tracks as infectiously disco-driven as three bumps in Studio 54, but there’s a breadth of influence that ranges from the annoying to the perverse (just like every other celeb-Scientology nutcase): background “oh oh oh ohohoh”s, faux hand claps, a mysterious excess of steel drums on tracks like “I Can’t Stay,” and a romp into reggae on “Joy Ride” just to name a few. 

That’s not to say that The Killers should hand us another “Mr. Brightside.”  There is something to be respected on Day & Age.  While The Killers usually deal in the denser forms of musical cheesiness, “Dustland Fairytale” is a Jarlsberg or Swiss, with holes of accessibility so vast that they’ll suck anyone into singing along, fists in the air, with Flowers’ description of real life on the Strip and a marching tune that successfully highlights every player and instrument on the track.

These smatterings of monumental music are held back by tracks like “Spaceman,” the only song with true narrative, and offering little more than the addictive synth-pop that’s expected from the band and lyrics that both describe an alien abduction, and fail to offer any real insight – be it on aliens or otherwise. 

That’s the big difference between The Killers and artists like Bowie: Bowie has something definitive he wants to say, and so, the shtick is “pulled off.”  The Killers sometimes have things to say, but mostly just need to prove their pant size isn’t the only thing driving record sales. 

If huge production value, a few embracive tracks (the rest of them wobbly-legged, empty-mouthed), and plenty of power pop are your thing, Day & Age will have you dancing all the way to the Grand Luxe.  This album, however, can probably be best described by Flowers’ admission in the grandiose final track, “there’s nothing I can say now, there’s nothing we can do now.”

Posted by Mark Steffen on Dec 15, 2008 @ 9:00 am