Sam's Town

The Killers’ irrefutable evolution

Four guys from Las Vegas who play classic rock and have risked calling themselves The Killers have been compared to an outstandingly vast variety of performers from Queen to Morrissey. When the band’s debut album Hot Fuss was released in 2004, vocalist Brandon Flowers, also playing synthesizer, guitarist and vocalist Dave Keuning, bassist and vocalist Mark Stoermer and drummer Ronnie Vannucci had already set their minds to become known all around the world and demonstrate the audience what real rock is. However, the album received quite moderate reviews, and the band members realized they had to try harder. Yet they have managed to gain over to a cause of a substantial fan base and this October The Killers are happy to present us the sophomore effort Sam’s Town, named after a hotel in Las Vegas. Despite the comparisons newly appeared with Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty, the new album is surely different from its predecessor, outshining it in many ways. Having preserved outstanding vocals and flawless instrumental background The Killers has improved its arrangements and worked on the structure of the album quite carefully. Music on Sam’s Town reminds the rock of the 1980s and serves as the sign of a band’s irrefutable professional growth.

Sam’s Town – the most honest and soulful rock album of the year

The guitars definitely sound much darker on Sam’s Town, and the lyrics commands respect even more than on The Killers’ debut work, the themes all pertaining to real life, and the texts surprising with unexpected metaphors. Melodious piano-featured Enterlude and Exitlude create a finished structure of the album, serving as a way to greet and then thank the audience. The opening title track strikes the listeners at once with tense drums, expressive vocals and a seemingly familiar melody, and the single When You Were Young, on which the vocalists sing about rises and falls, the god and the devil, is remarkable for an inimitable contrast of the high tones on chorus well with a low bass line. Bling (Confessions Of A King) is a grandiose song, reminding of Queen’s early works to some extent, but it is more aggressive and tense in sounding. An infectious rhythm and great back-vocals contribute to the tune on track For Reasons Unknown; the title words are repeated several times in order to make you sing along with the guys and remember the song for quite some time. Read My Mind is one of the album’s highlights, its simplistic lyrics add to the feeling of sincerity, and Uncle Jonny is something completely different. Rough guitars create a certain disbalance with mid-tempo drums, and the vocalists’ plangent singing makes the composition especially hard and depressive, and still it is a magnificent piece of work. Frank and a bit rude lyrics on another single Bones makes it one of the funniest songs on Sam’s Town, while This River Is Wild is probably the song that most of all reminds of Bruce Springsteen’s early creations, though naturally, the singers’ voices are utterly unlike. On the whole, apart from being The Killers’ more lucky work Sam’s Town is certainly the most honest and soulful rock album of the year.

Sam’s Town has all the advantages of a perfect rock creation

It is always an undertaking to choose the best rock team out of the numerous new indie groups that are appearing almost every day all over the world. Some albums are characterized as mediocre, some are not even worthy of mentioning; yet there is always at least one creation that never leaves people indifferent. Sam’s Town is exactly the album of the kind. The inventive musicians comprising The Killers have managed to make a record that can be either loved from the first hearing or hated immediately. Nevertheless, no matter how you find it, Sam’s Town has all the advantages of a perfect rock creation and is sure to remain on the tops of the world charts much longer than many others of its competitors. The Killers may be compared to the bands and artists of the past and the present, but it only proves that their music has any chance to become classic, combining in it all the best that has been done before The Killers and is still created today. The guys have showed their ability not to double their works and yet they continue occupying the niche they have found with the release of the first record. With this tendency keep going, we can be sure The Killers is soon going to surprise us again.