Band’s less-than-stellar sophomore album not enough to slow it down
The Killers
Where: Merriweather Post Pavilion, 10475 Little Patuxent Parkway, Columbia
When: 7:30 p.m. Monday
Details: $35 to $45; ticketmaster.com
The Killers are ready to make you forget the notion that a critically weak second album is a deathblow to a band.
The band didn’t hang its collective heads when the American-roots-filled “Sam’s Town,” the band’s 2006 sophomore release, found commercial, but not critical, success. Instead, band members told music journalists they just came back and “played louder” thus further honing the band’s stage show before it released “Day & Age” late last year. Consider this tour a victory lap of sorts for the Las Vegas-born quartet as it rides high on this work’s success. Not that it’s been easy.
“It’s four guys fighting it out and trying to rock, ” guitarist Dave Keuning told American Songwriter magazine. “We tend to write big things. It’s not much to think about; it’s just what we do.”
In doing so, the band has seemingly found its musical footing. “Day & Age,” produced by Stuart Price, who has worked with Madonna and Gwen Stefani, has guided the band’s latest album of synth-filled pop dance numbers. It’s a bit of a return to the band’s debut, the 1980s styled synth pop “Hot Fuss,” which became one of the most commercially successful releases of 2004.
But this album has the maturity that critics didn’t find in the debut. Even on slower numbers — such as the much-acclaimed “Are We Human” — the band’s sound brings with it a polish and assurance that has again won over critics including those at “American Songwriter” that hail that song’s “fascinating melody and lyrical vital signs.”
Yet, perhaps it’s inevitable that Las Vegas-based bands do their best work when party numbers are at the forefront of their catalogues and they can strut their glam selves on stage. Not that The Killers, Panic! at the Disco, or other Vegas-born bands started playing at the big casinos or nightspots. Of course they honed their skills in local clubs, just like those from less theatrical areas. Still the Vegas-born bands’ common denominator in recent ears has often been to haul out the MAC cosmetics and glam to give the audiences a full show experience.
“The Killers do, occasionally, seem something other than human ([Brandon] Flowers [the band’s frontman] has taken to sporting elaborate epaulets on the shoulders of his tailored suits),” wrote a critic for The New York Times, “But it’s glammy, ’80s leaning rock ‘n’ roll is sharp and urgent.”
And really, isn’t that what it’s all about?
