Albums of the Year # 40 The Killers - Pressure Machine

 

 

For a band this far into their careers, The Killers should definitely be in the 'has-been' categeory by this stage of the game. But remarkably they're not. They're very much a creative and commercial success still. Their latest album Pressure Machine, their seventh in all, is a pretty damned good one.

A concept album of sorts. Full of lovingly constructed portraits of singer Brandon Flowers' hometown of Nephi, Utah, population circa 5,300 during Lockdown. Between each song you hear interviews of the town's inhabitants. Smalltown tales of joy and woe. Mostly the latter.

The album itself is most obviously influenced by Springsteen. At some points to a ridiculous degree as with third track Terrible Thing which owes its existence almost entirely to The River,  melodically and also rather thematically.

The Boss haunts several other tracks here, probably the whole record. Pressure Machine is a tough record generally. It doesn't paint a particularly pretty picture of Nephi and hearing it is not likely to make you want to move there.

This is the sound of hollowed out lives and thwarted dreams. Looking for a way out and never managing to find it. But the tunes are certainly up there with what you'd expect of a band of the quality of The Killers. 

They've always a band who headed straight for the commercial lane of the highway, but also showed that it could be done impressively and with grace. Some of the tracks here achieve a genuine poignancy you wouldn't really quite expect of the band. There's something quite eerie about some of the songs here that hint of Steinbeck and The Last Picture Show  yet willl still sound great in the stadiums. I'd say it's one of the best things the band have ever done.