In all the, um, hot fuss over the Killers, no one ever seemed to acknowledge the one thing that stuck out at me from the very beginning: they are wildly, wildly overrated. This is not to say that they suck, because they don’t. But they never deserved the Next Great Rock Band status that was immediately bestowed upon them, and singer Brandon Flowers actually earned some big points with me last summer when the organizers of London’s Live 8 show wanted them to be a headliner, and he refused, choosing to play earlier in the day instead. Smart man.
So now we have their new one, Sam’s Town, and it’s…well, it just isn’t that good. There is nothing along the lines of “Smile Like You Mean It” or “All These Things That I Have Done.” And what’s with the mix job? I expected better from Alan Moulder and Flood, but the recording is way too “hot,” to use engineer lingo.
I’m not quite sure about this whole Killers-Springsteen angle everyone keeps mentioning, except for that one progression in “When You Were Young” that sounds like “Born to Run.” But the Boss has nothing to worry about at this point. I had hoped for the Killers to surprise me this time around, like Franz Ferdinand did with their second record. Instead, they only confirmed my original assessment of the band. Pity, really. I had really hoped they would prove me wrong.
