5/5
Diamonds Are Forever.
The Killer like Fassbender and Fincher this fall, after making one, Brandon Flowers and his Las Vegas band are on a victory lap on the Sin City strip. Winning this in-season tournament like the new NBA Cup with 'Rebel Diamonds'. Their second best of collection after taking 'Direct Hits' on the first half of their career and giving us another one with their 'Shot At The Night' gamble that paid off. This 20 strong set of hindsight vision closes with the new single 'Spirit' that will leave yours in a stunning trance. "Wiped out, sucking on the fumes of a long-gone flame/Can you leverage love?/Can you process pain?/It grabs you by the night/My dreams are big and bathing in light, so/Come on, touch me, I'm a live wire/Wait, don't cover my eyes/When darkness dampens my sight/My dreams are big and bathing in light", Flowers blooms on this lasting fire that's as ever as the Holy Spirit they channel in a sinful land of high rollers. Spinning the roulette wheel once more on a retrospective, Vegas' finest like the two-time WNBA back-to-back champ comes up aces.
These diamonds mine more to mark the 20th anniversary of their definitive debut that's opening half played like a greatest hits in itself. Four of those formidable fussing tracks begin this celebration for your heat check. The soul soldiers arming up with 'Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine', 'Mr. Brightside', 'All These Things That I've Done' and 'Somebody Told Me' (that you had a girlfriend) for their catalogue battalion. Most best acts today would finish their greatest hits there, and be lucky to have that many over the span of their career. Let alone to begin a damn debut LP. Yet this band went hard out the gate like the King against the Kings. 'When You Were Young', or should I say, "we"? This was the soundtrack to 'Read My Mind' like nostalgia ("The stars are blazing like rebel diamonds/Cut out of the sun/Can you read my mind?"). From 'Sam's Town' to Tokyo, Japan. The next stage of The Killers turned them dancer and a Ziggy Stardust Bowie for this 'Spaceman' with a 'Human' touch like Springsteen. Storming the gates of Graceland like a Boss reaching for Elvis, they follow these 'Dustland Fairytale(s)', with what up against the wall was one of their best albums, 'Battle Born'. Now, 'The Man' may answer, "I don't give a damn" to that question of why that song from the soundtrack that saw Christian Bale put a 'Vice' grip of Donald Cheney with Adam McKay is the only 'Wonderful, Wonderful' diamond here. But we would have liked to have been able to 'Run For Cover' too. Never mind, this album has hits in spades like the vivid videos of holdovers 'Boy' and the across the tracks 'Your Side Of Town'.
'Caution', 'Imploding The Mirage' there's even more in store from their latter albums, featuring the incredible 'My Own Soul's Warning' that tells us, "If you could see through the banner of the sun/Into eternity's eyes, like a vision reaching down to you/Would you turn away?/What if it knew you by your name?/What kind of words would cut through the clutter of the whirlwind of these days?" Lifting us out of the planet pandemic of 2020, questioning us to adjust to a new normal, or our own unique path. A year later, still in uncertain times, they gave us their last album and the 'Pressure Machine' of some Springsteen idol like social commentary. The title track put in blue collar work, and the words from a 'Quiet Town' will subtly echo for eternity through the reverberations. "A couple of kids got hit by a Union Pacific train/Carrying sheet metal and household appliances through the pouring rain/They were planning on getting married after graduation/Had a little baby girl, trouble came and shut it down/Things like that ain't supposed to happen", a forlorn Flowers forewarns with this history lesson an animated video that amazes. Brandon branding his American open road dream lyrics with the lace of what happens if you give up the chase. There's hope in the heart of these Killers, bringing new life to the heartland of Americana. We hope the roulette keeps turning for these rebels with a cause, and it doesn't fade to black in a snake's eyes. Seeing red, these diamonds shine with their greatest cuts. Time to give these records another spin. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Playlist Picks: 'Spirit', 'Boy', 'Your Side Of Town'.
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