The Killers hit it big with their first album. Although an imperfect album, it had some very catchy and very rousing songs. Everywhere, student discos throbbed to 'Somebody told me' and 'Mr. Brightside' while ending with 'All these things that I have done'.

The lead single off the album is called ' When you were young' and for me was a near instant favourite. It has a thundering intro, a heavy mix of drums and guitars before Brandon's vocal comes in, vulnerable and fractured as always. As ever he sings of the uncertain pain of being a teenager or perhaps in your early 20's. I'm well past that now but I can still enjoy a good Killer's song. Its a powerful taster for the new album.

The album then has seen many compare the Killers to Brucie Springsteen and away from the early 80's UK indie that the boys paid tribute to on the first album. In a recent interview, Flowers(for that is Brandon's surname. Apparently.) said they wanted to become the new U". Stadium rock pleasers. So its more rock oriented and there's less emphasis on synthesisers.


The sound of this record is so loud thatit is intensely difficult to listen to and a reason I never properly finished this review. The picture disc too, while looking good, has a very noisy surface. Luckily the loud music usually obscures this ;)

The music itself made little enough impact on me although I do love 'When we were young' and 'Read my mind'. 'bones' did nothing for me. Brandon Flower's voice s more natural on this album and has that same pining yearning quality to it as on the first album. I take it things are never that great in the Flowers world.