The Killers
“Sam’s Town”
Island Records
(Out of 5)
The Killers’ vocalist Brandon Flowers was recently
interviewed in “Entertainment Weekly” and modestly
declared that his group’s new album, “Sam’s
Town,” would be “one of the best albums in the past 20
years,” not to mention the album “that keeps rock
‘n’ roll afloat.”
Those are some Scott Stapp-esque claims. It’s too bad for
Flowers that his reason for making these claims is a stupefyingly
boring, 10th-generation Xerox copy of Bruce Springsteen’s
“Born to Run.”
Flowers and The Killers have made no secret of their newfound
love for The Boss. Flowers has openly stated in interviews that the
new album is influenced by one of the pre-eminent symbols of
Americana, and the band has washed off its makeup and put on a
tough guy look, sporting beards and leather jackets in press
photos.
Unfortunately, The Boss’ jeans are too big for Flowers and
company to fit into.
“Sam’s Town” opens with an eponymous track, in
which Flowers begins to throw out the first of countless
Springsteen-esque lyrical ramblings, among them, “I’ve
never known anybody to die before / Red white and blue on a
birthday cake / And my brother, he was born on the fourth of
July.”
The album is full of Springsteen-isms, such as “When You
Were Young’s” gem, “We’re burning down the
highway skyline on the back of a hurricane.” “When You
Were Young,” the first single, is notable for being the
album’s best song. And when the first single is the best song
on an album, that’s almost universally a bad sign.
It’s hilarious that you can go through every song and look
for lyrics that belong on a Boss record. Basically, anything
involving cars, the open road or proclamations such as
“without an answer, thunder speaks from the sky,” from
“Bones.” Or what about the entire duration of
“The River Is Wild?” Yes, these are honest-to-god,
nonsensical arena rock lyrics about Americana.
Odd considering that Las Vegas, the band’s hometown, is as
far from the heartland as you can get. Then again, Vegas is where
middle America goes on vacation, so maybe the Killers picked up
something from tourists.
That’s the only explanation that makes sense for why a
band so good at ripping off new-wave and glam would try to imitate
something it has no business imitating.
That would be like if Creed went from ripping off Pearl Jam to
imitating My Bloody Valentine.
Creed was lousy, but at least it knew who it could rip off.
Can’t say the same about The Killers.