release date: Sep. 22, 2017
format: cd
[album rate: 3 / 5] [2,88]
producer: Jacknife Lee
label: Island Records - nationality: USA
Track highlights: 1. "Wonderful Wonderful" - 2. "The Man" - 3. "Rut" - 6. "Tyson vs. Douglas" - 7. "Some Kind of Love"
5th studio album by The Killers released full five years after Battle Born is, as often before, made with a new producer. Since 2012, they released the 'best of' album Direct Hits (2013) and the iTunes Christmas album Don't Waste Your Wishes in 2016, and then the band members have also spent time focusing on other projects. Lead vocalist Brandon Flowers released his second solo album The Desired Effect (2015), bassist Mark Stoermer released his second solo Dark Arts (2016), and drummer Ronnie Vanucci Jr. with his music project Big Talk released their second album Straight in No Kissin' (2015). Only guitarist Dave Keuning seemed content appearing as guest musician on other people's releases. Producer Jacknife Lee was reportedly recommended to the band by Bono (U2), and Lee is also credited as a co-composer on seven of the regular album's ten songs as well as being credited as instrumentalist on an album that doesn't exactly miss out on additional credits of studio personel. Earlier, the band has made it a bit of a trademark to both excell in raw and aggressive music in the alt. rock genre and that of gentler soft rock and a synthpop expression, and it seems as if they have come to terms with the fact that they don't have to play Kings of Leon or Pearl Jam, but still just want to do a bit of both.
The album was met by a mixed press, but fans were ready, and Wonderful Wonderful went straight to number #1 in the UK as the band's fifth consecutive studio album, and it was the band's first to top the US Billboard 200.
The Killers must be doing something right as their sales numbers are at the right end of the scale internationally and together with Jacknife Lee they have made a genuine heartland rock album, which will surely do well at major festivals all over the world. To my ears, it's just too much recycling. They have turned up on all the expensive mixing consoles and all the fine hardware to follow in the footsteps of U2 and Springsteen. Jayson Greene (Pitchfork) aptly writes about the title track: "The stage is appropriately set for an Achtung Baby moment, but Flowers decides, instead of a big chorus, to bleat, “Motherless child, dost thou believe/That thine afflictions have caused us to grieve?” veering right past Achtung Baby U2 straight into “stuck inside a giant malfunctioning mechanical lemon” U2." And no, Brandon Flowers has never proved to be a skilled songwriter, but he knows how to build a song into a resounding chorus that has a whole stadium crowd roaring along. There are hints of good hooks, but what's the point when the songs just sound like U2, Depeche Mode, Springsteen, or The Killers copying The Killers, anyway? All in all, it tends towards the uniformly boring and is, in my opinion, the band's poorest studio album to date.
Not recommended.
