At least this album was not released on Twitter. The Killers are back and have made it into the halls of acceptable release platforms. This is not The New Norm ShowYour Christmas song cannot remain on a platform of bile and ill will. Bright lightsthe latest song from Las Vegas-born but UK-influenced band The Killers is a banger. Brandon Flowers and the band are still great at finding a new way to energize. When your blood sugar has crashed and you feel the bags under your eyes stiffening, there’s nothing better than Human or an equally charged track from the band that will make you stretch your arms and legs. Such is life behind the desk, where boxes and boxes of books threaten to collapse and kill in an intricate horror for the late Floyd Collins.
But enough about caves. Stand in the darkness with nothing on you. The Killers respond to the enormous success they have there by embracing the risk and reward of their early years. Reach out to the hot and desolate plains of Las Vegas as they drift through them with a loose heartland rock riff. Bright lights is a great song, an entertaining achievement for a band that has frustrated itself with throwing away material and searching for a sound that it feels represents a respectable identity. They’ve already thrown away an album, and made up for it with a best-of compilation that features one of the salvaged tracks. Bright lights is either a hint of where The Killers is going, or another of the discarded varieties. It’s probably the former. Hopefully, anyway.
These lighter flourishes and the sudden raising of the lyrical bar are great. The Killers at their best, something they haven’t achieved in a long time. They haven’t forgotten their roots – it’s clear from the dedication with which Flowers leads the band and doesn’t pursue solo projects. He hasn’t fledged yet and longevity offers the opportunity to have moments of comfortable camaraderie along the way. These instrumentals are not just a joyous occasion with flashes of the permanence of Bruce Springsteen’s heartland, they are the bright lights Flowers sings about. The Killers rise to the occasion, not on the first try, but at least they revive their committed and optimistic sound. Bright lights is a band that looks back, but climbs further forward than in the last ten years.
If it weren’t for these sparkling jewels in the first sections of their discography, then The Killers could well be defined as Bright lights. Flowers has the voice for heartland rock and the band fits well. Powerful, emotional and entertaining. These are the three guiding principles for this Bright lights release. Backing singers and a warm, infectiously catchy tempo make it hard to hate. Flowers and the band give themselves a chance to be proud of where they’ve come from, how far they’ve come along that road, and how well they’re coping with the move away from their formative songs. The Killers partially reinvent themselves with this album. They’ve recovered from discarding an entire album’s worth of recordings and are able to move on with a fresh sound, and it’s a joy to hear that.
