My favorite thing about the Killers' new album, Day & Age, is that listening to the full disc made me rightfully appreciate its first single, "Human," which I'd too quickly dismissed last month. "Are we human or are we dancer," Brandon Flowers beseeches us to consider -- a reference, he's said, to a woe-is-us warning from writer Hunter S. Thompson. Flowers is always having some kind of crisis on the dance floor. On 2004's Hot Fuss, which in retrospect belonged firmly on my own top 10 list of Greatest & Gayest albums, he's debating the "potential" of his sexuality in "Somebody Told Me."
In "Human" the grand debate is more existential -- but when Flowers is promising, "I'm on my knees, looking for the answer" over the most gay thumpa-thumpa electronica I've heard since Queer is Folk was canceled, it's hard not to want to throw back your head, strip off your shirt, and shake your booty like it's 1999. It sounds exactly like a Killers song should, new and old at the same time, silly and yet far too serious about a clubland contemplation. (There are some decent remixes, but it doesn't really require them.)
As always with this band, you will know them by the company they keep: "Losing Touch" is a bit like newer George Michael, "Spaceman" has a taste of Bowie, "Joy Ride" feels like Peter Gabriel and Midnight Oil, and the others are all a tad Tears for Fears ("The World We Live In"), classic Talking Heads, early U2, late model Depeche Mode. There are worse influences to have, worse sounds to steal, and what Hot Fuss did so well was take 20 years of synth-pop, throw it in a blender, and come out the other side somehow sounding unique. I don't think the recipe worked quite as well overall here.
Though Flowers talked a lot about how the band's last full-length album, Sam's Town, was inspired by Bruce Springsteen, it was an elusive comparison at best, egotastic at worst. Day & Age's "A Dustland Fairytale," unfortunately, sounds way too much like the Boss' "Thunder Road." If you're going to emulate one of the all-time best piano-driven rock songs ever written, it might behoove you to make one exception to your AutoTune resistance.
All that said, it took a week of my reluctance to unload Sam's Town from the CD player before I realized how much I loved "Bones" and "This River is Wild" and "For Reasons Unknown," so I'm going to let Day & Age simmer a while on repeat and see how things shake out. I'm stuck now on what feels like the disc's most original track: "Neon Tiger" is a beautifully insane demand to uncage yourself and let loose in the city of Sin. That sounds exactly like the Killers I love so much.
(After years of running off at the mouth first and apologizing later, by the way, Flowers seems to have finally found some kind of zen. This Advocate interview with him is smart and chill and refreshing -- and his comment about having dinner on a regular basis with Elton John gives credence to the rumors that they'll record this year's Christmas single with him.)
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