As it may or may not have been made abundantly clear for those in attendance familiar with my writing, I am a fan of Bruce Springsteen, or perhaps a Superfan or a Fanatic or one of those words that we use to describe fans who seem to not simply enjoy particular albums by particular artists, but have illicit love affairs with them, have them tucked under your arm during long rides into the sunset and filtering into your consciousness as you try to sleep at night... this all describes my relationship to Mr. Springsteen fairly accurately. Trust me: battered vinyl and cd copies of The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle will attest to this, as will a string of chronological reviews of the man's discography that apparently stalled somewhere in the Springsteenian year of 1992 a.d.

My relationship with the Killers is a bit more tenuous; it's not particularly volatile, but they haven't had the chance to prove themselves as long as Springsteen has, nor to hone their craft as long. Their sophomore album isn't as good as Bruce's, but I suppose that's not entirely surprising. The Las Vegas outfit released, of course, an album in 2004 called Hot Fuss that yielded a whole lot of airplay and album sales; this album i derided as "sucking" in a year-end review that spoke of the brilliance of Hot Fuss's metasingle "Mr. Brightside". I was wrong about it "sucking," but there's very little on that album that doesn't lurk in the looming shadow of "Brightside," that song being one of the better singles of the decade thus far. You could, I suppose, use the oft-cited excuse that nothing that leans that heavily on an 80's influence is gonna be that revelatory, but that's kind of bullshit -- didn't the 80s yield U2, "Time After Time," Thriller, &c? Hot Fuss didn't suck because of the influence of the hit singles of a bygone and oft-mocked era. It didn't even suck. It just failed to deliver on the promise of its singles: I maintain, of course, that "Mr. Brightside" remains one of the multiple orgasms of the past decade's singles, but beyond that, there was the androgynous disco-rock of "Somebody Told Me" and the stoned gospel fervor of "All These Things That I've Done," all worthy, all interesting, all great. Still, if Hot Fuss had nothing else, it had panache and a knack for singles.

So of course Sam's Town was a must-buy for me. Lead singer Brandon Flowers even said it was one of the best albums in the last 20 years, and that may have sold me a bit, for I'd assume that anyone with the balls to make a claim like that would have the balls to be musically adventurous and ambitious enough to craft an album that would live up to that claim. Of course, you could also be Kevin Federline touting his abilities as a womanizer _and_ a rapper, or maybe Oasis claiming they're the best band in the world, so in retrospect that may not have been a sound statement to base my purchasing on. Fortunately, the band also claimed to have immersed themselves in Springsteen's early records, and early buzz seemed to indicate that the Boss had, indeed, cast his immense musical shadow over the proceedings.

It's true that to the undiscerning ear, lead single "When You Were Young" sounds a lot like Bruce Springsteen. There's a bit of dust-bowl revivalism, lyrics about misplaced redemption and shattered dreams, religious turmoil, God, the Devil, highway skylines, et cetera. But there's also a simple but obscenely memorable guitar line, an air of youthful idealism, and the sense that these young men know what an anthem they're creating, which are all hallmarks of you know who. And if you don't know, I'm sure Bono will tell you.

So The Killers as the new Springsteen are out. I'd love someone to pick up the mantle of early-period Springsteen and carry it all the way to the record store, and I wouldn't entirely mind if that band were the Killers (they've got the hooks and the fist-pumping down pat, at least), but it's not. Which means that The Killers officially must now be judged on, horror of horror, their own merit!

Fortunately, The Killers in 2006 have made a very good record.

Sam's Town is not a great record. There are a handful of great songs, but it's clearly not a Great Record. Actually, most of the songs are fantastic. The hell of it is that none of the poor bastards can sing. Brandon Flowers' voice all too often sounds robotic, and when it escapes the monotone, it tends to leap into ranges that Bono would *nail*, but Brandon Flowers simply strains for. It's a thin instrument, his voice, but it's the only mouthpiece we have for these songs, and so we have to make do. And, similarly, The Killers don't provide very good backing vocals, despite the ubiquitous Bruce Springsteen comparisons.

That said, Sam's Town sounds really good despite this. And I think it's a testament to the songs that, despite the fact that I consider their singer to be a little on the weak side, I still actively want to listen to this album, and often. It could be that The Killers are interesting players making interesting musical decisions, but I think it's more that the songs are really good. The hooks in Sam's Town are barely containable. "When You Were Young" is every bit the anthem it purports to be, all empty desert and sandstorms, caterwauling in a desolate, wide open space--the epitome of the glum-looking cover shot, the only true approximation of Born to Run-era Springsteen beyond the occasional cosmetic similarity.

"Bling (Confessions of a King)" has the silliest title on a Killers record to date (no small feat for a band that already has "Glamorous Indie Rock and Roll" and "Where the White Boys Dance" to their credit), but reaches for anthemic status and gets a few fingers in. "For Reasons Unknown" and "Read My Mind" are ostensibly the same song, both mid-tempo ballads that bank on a few suspenseful chord changes and chugging, hook-filled choruses. "Read My Mind," of course, is the better of the two, riding a fantastic hook all the way to, hopefully, the bank (if there's no plans to make this fantastic, fantastic song a single, society is doomed). "Bones," as a sex romp, does Hot Fuss's "Somebody Told Me" one better by adding a choir and a horn section, effectively elevating The Killers, temporarily, to the level of early U2, loud, bombastic, and earnest, but, more importantly, willing to take risks, confident that the level of their multi-layered bluster will pay off in spades. "The River is Wild" returns to familiar Springsteen territory, a late-album anthem that, much like the man himself, puts a hell of a lot of stock in the idea of a body of water as a metaphor.

And, of course, there's "Uncle Jonny," one of those songs that just fill you with an overwhelming sense of absolutely nothing. And there's an "Enterlude" and an "Exitlude," both of which are extensions of the same short, piano-based tune, both silly and potentially superfluous, but, by album's end, way too endearing to be dispensible. And as the album fades out on a simple piano line and a chorus of Killers singing off-key "it's good to have you with us, even if just for the day," you actually kind of feel something, almost as if the album is riding off into the sunset, and you're gonna miss it. (A feeling that perhaps may be a direct extension of the fact that, on my iTunes, the end of Sam's Town bleeds into several Zack Attack! tunes from the "Saved By the Bell" soundtrack.)

The strength of Sam's Town lies not in The Killers' very obvious talent at recreating the pomp and bombast of U2 (or even Springsteen); we knew they were capable of pomp and bombast a while ago. No, Sam's Town is a Very Good Album because it shows that The Killers had the good sense to realize that "Mr. Brightside" was a fantastic song, and decided to devote a whole album to concocting songs bursting with hooks as supernatural as that one. So the singing isn't that good; so what? Ultimately, Sam's Town is a bunch of pretty-good performances of very-good songs. And you know, it's charming. Allow the 1-star reviews to trickle in, but I'm sticking by this: Sam's Town is a damn interesting place to visit, even if you don't decide to stay.





Recommended: Yes