As Glastonbury headliners in 2019 and with a stadium tour now happening in summer 2021, The Killers remain in huge demand as a euphoric live band, yet as a unit it’s easy to feel that they aren’t quite as committed as their fans.
Bassist Mark Stoermer has one foot in, one out, guitarist Dave Keuning is still officially a member but hasn’t been involved since 2017, and there have been eight solo albums between the four of them in the past decade.
This lack of solidity means more space for guest stars on their sixth album. Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham provides vigorous guitar work on the single Caution (though Running Towards a Place sounds even more like the older band). There’s a verse from k.d. lang on Lightning Fields, and singer-songwriter Weyes Blood and Adam Granduciel from The War On Drugs are in there too.
Frontman Brandon Flowers is still in firm control, however, and it’s obvious that many of these songs were designed to thrill all the way to Block 134, Row Z of the Emirates Stadium next June. Songs such as My Own Soul’s Warning, with its unhurried intro and air-punching synth riff, and My God, with a chorus bigger than a football chant, sound vast, exhilaratingly overblown in the manner the band have been so great at since their debut single Mr Brightside.
Headphones on, eyes shut, volume up, it’s already possible to see a gigantic crowd expressing warm approval of new songs that stand with their best.
