A couple of months back I heard this nasal, whining voice on the radio quietly singing "They say the devils water it ain’t so sweet / You don’t have to drink right now / But you can dip your feet / Every once in a little while." It was, as it turned out, the refrain from this song called "When You Were Young" and I remember asking my girlfriend, "I thought Meat Loaf had given up his music career?"
"When You Were Young" was, of course, the first single off of The Killers’ sophomore effort, Sam’s Town (named after a casino hotel in their native Las Vegas). Now I should probably disclose that I’m a big Killers fan, and it took the arena-rock drivel of Sam’s Town for me to realize exactly why I’m a Killers fan. It wasn’t because they were startlingly original (they weren’t) or innovative even (not really); it was because their music was about girlfriends that looked like boyfriends, or smothering some chick named Jenny, or what it feels like to stalk an ex-lover. It was pseudo-romantic, pop candy in pretty, new-wave packaging.
Sam’s Town, on the other hand, is the sonic equivalent of doing laps in a kiddie pool. With lyrics that wail about highways and hurricanes and clouds falling from the sky, Brandon Flowers and company cross so far into Bruce Springsteen territory that they’ve emerged on the other side as a kind of "Slippery When Wet"-era Bon Jovi.
There are a few smatterings of Hot Fuss Killers here and there (which are undeniably the best parts of this new album), but they are too few and far between to make up for the heaping dollops of self-indulgence on everything else.