the killers - are they killer?

nothing against Johnny Marr but I wish the Manics were the North American openers :( I'd consider going, assuming gigs start happening again by...October

i have listened to this six times in a row

also the lyrics are ABSOLUTE NONSENSE never change brandon flowers

fond memories of playing "Spaceman" for a songwriter friend of mine and asking her to interpret the lyrics, by the end we were almost teary with laughter

I had fun assembling this lil reverse chronological all-deep-cuts playlist for ppl who only know them as a (mostly pretty great) singles act

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4QuvM3HibuCLu9etFakXrE?si=ZMTSGlDYTASXBnvnsZBhTg

Yes!! That wee guitar strum sounds like She Sells Sanctuary

oh my god this song lmao

i love it when this ridiculous band hits the mark so well, this is one of their best

Simon you forgot “Spaceship Adventure” from Yo Gabba Gabba

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Nx24VAjK6Q

shaping up to be the best killers record

lol that sleeve

this rules and the production is the best they've ever sounded. hope they can keep it up for the rest of the album even though they've never managed much consistency before

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE7jCzWwbxw

three for three!

this is gonna be their best album????????

also alert imago i guess because weyes blood has a writing credit on one of the album tracks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-2jJq7Z7Qs

this is absolutely going to be their best album by a fair way

It is.

have you got a review copy? i'm glad to hear the singles aren't a fluke then

Yep. They're as ridiculous as ever but more consistent about it.

this album is so good! the start of "lightning fields" is so blue nile which i didn't expect at all. all the arrangements are so rich

it's just bizarre they a released an album so clearly their best at this point in their career, a fair way past their commercial peak. like, who does that?

it's good!

alfred as usual that is one hell of a review

thank you!

I was driving around and heard a very Springsteen-y song and it turned out to be a Killers track. I figured it was from the album where they went all Springsteen-y (Sam's Town? Is that a Killers album?), but unless I misheard it was new, so I guess they went all Springsteen-y again?

Anyway, I'm intrigued. The Killers are one of those bands (like, I dunno, Death Cab for Cutie) that have always released singles I'm happy to hear but no albums I want to listen to. But Pet Shop Boys meets Bruce Springsteen is a pretty unbeatable combination in the JiC household.

i don't think they ever really stopped being springsteen-y once they started, but they're certainly better than ever at that on this album

this is the first time they've made a record that's all killer no filler and it's not just that it's more consistent, the arrangements are so much richer than anything they've done before.

Also sounds a whole lot like Future Islands (shared influences I'm sure, but still).

This is the first time that the Killers have sounded listenable to me.

this album is Ridiculous

If I had a record store I would have a section that says "Ridiculous." And then when someone asks for a band like the Killers or Blue Oyster Cult (for example) I would say, oh, they're over there, under "Ridiculous."

otm

there's a total blue nile thing happening in "lightning fields"

oh yeah ufo mentioned it upthread lol

at 3:19 in lightening fields, the song time-travels to a mid '90s alt-rock radio station.

fire and bone is talking heads but david byrne is less of a dick

pls somebody remix 'my god' with erasure's 'always'

listened to a bit, I hear quite a bit of the last The War on Drugs album, the synth Springsteen action

pls somebody remix 'my god' with erasure's 'always'

"always I wanna be with my god and make believe with my god and live in harmony, harmony, oh love!"

has a certain ring to it

A couple of songs on this sound like the War On Drugs if dude were shameless instead of shy.

Also, giving this album more attention right now, I think the title track kind of sucks.

for some reason I just....can't, with this one, at least not today

it's very impressive and i expect to love it eventually but i was feeling similarly

it's like they finally completed the killers mentaculus by locating all the correct/desired references but they're TOO in love with them to keep me immersed, or something like that

hmmm

i don't think the last four tracks are quite as good as the first six but it's all good-to-great

not that i want to do this, but I mean what the heck does the title even mean? a mirage ain't nothing but illusion, so is imploding a mirage supposed to mean collapsing a nothing back into a nothing?

seems like something a stoned 14-year old with a thesaurus would come up with when trying to generate a profundity? actually, yes, that is probably what the title is supposed to mean because 'stoned 14-year old with a thesaurus trying to generate profundity' is a explanation of this album.

alternatives title ideas: anti-hologram, phenomenology of nothing

the mirage is a casino in las vegas. casinos are often demolished through implosion cf. the aladdin

i mean they probably are also gesturing at some metaphysical meaning but it really only makes sense literally

i saw an interview where flowers explained that it's a metaphor for his move away from las vegas but also the main theme of the album is something about helping his wife with her struggles with ptsd

this is the guy who gave us "are we human or are we dancer" so im honestly not looking for a lot of meaning

he also said in that interview that they've already made major progress on their next album while in quarantine

y'all

we're debating Killers lyrics and intentions

Anyway, these are the songs I'd keep.

Nice review!

The Desired Effect is such an overlooked album