VEGASinsight Archives

The Killers
Day & Age
(Island)

We’re going to deviate from the typical, one-sided, subjective album review you’ve come to know and hate for this latest studio effort from Las Vegas’ own The Killers in favor of something far more interesting: a two-sided, subjective album review. Today, VEGASinsight’s Pj Perez welcomes special guest Roger Erik Tinch, art and online director for the CineVegas Film Festival, as we present two very different takes on Day & Age, which hits stores in the United States today.

Pj: As usual, The Killers keep Day & Age lean, with only 10 tracks over 41 minutes (not counting the bonus tracks which we media types don’t get to preview). But that doesn’t mean they’ve cut the fat musically. Rather, the boys from Sin City try to cram so many different sounds into not only the album but each song – from dance to funk to Latin to rock to pop – that it seems along the way they just forgot to write a good song. It feels as though The Killers are overreaching even more than on Sam’s Town, whereas they’d be best off stripping back the horns and orchestral overtones and simply scratching out some palatable hooks and melodies.

Roger: OK, do some of the songs rip off The Clash? Sure. But four (three studio) albums in and the band is stilling putting together fully encompassed songs, unlike some of my other favorite bands, Coldplay and Radiohead. They rip from the playbook of The Beatles (yes I said it) and make rhythmically catchy tunes on top of seemingly simple lyrics that get more complex the digger you deep. Is it their best album? No, that is still reserved for Sam’s Town, a dystopian cowboy’s guide to the desert. But it is once again a cohesive album that raises the bar on their musical eclecticism without fully changing their “sound.”

Let’s look at the album, song by song:

“Losing Touch”
Pj: Hmm … it sounds like E.L.O. I guess I’m biased against ’70s retreads but totally alright with ’80s do-overs, as I very much enjoyed The Killers’ debut, Hot Fuss. Come on, if you’re going to dip back into the ’70s, at least make it David Bowie or Iggy Pop or, hell, go the Billy Joel route.
Roger: A great introduction to a new sound from The Killers. Pay attention to the sax as that’s the driving force behind the intriguingly fresh soundscape for the lads. (more…)

I have a love-hate relationship with The Killers. I loved Hot Fuss, despite whatever middling review I gave it in the Las Vegas Weekly. That disc lived in my car for a long time. But I was very disappointed with Sam’s Town, probably because the band’s drastic change in sound seemed forced, not organic as I think they expected it to appear. The sophomore songs did grow on me after seeing them performed live a few times, but I still do not have Sam’s Town and that’s fine.

What’s odd is that the band’s B-sides, bonus tracks and unreleased songs in the interim seem to be my favorites. I have a collection of gems such as “Where Is She” and “Where the White Boys Dance” that always seemed, to me, more worthy than half the material on Sam’s Town.

Well, now The Killers have released Sawdust, a collection of those rarities, B-sides and other stuff sitting around the band’s vault. And, after listening to a song I’d not previously heard (the Sam’s Town bonus track “All the Pretty Face”), my belief that this material is much more favorable to my ears is reinforced.

If you’d like to discover for yourself and live in Las Vegas, head to Tao inside the Venetian at 11 p.m. tonight, where Vinyl Wednesdays is hosting a release party for Sawdust. The MADaM crew is giving away copies of the disc and other Killers swag, the Bargain DJ Collective is spinning and there will be local art. So your only excuse for not going is because your mom said “no.”