Hello everyone, I thought I might do a lickle album review
for you is that OK with you? Oh good that’s excellent, right well I better
bloody get on with it then. I thought I would review the new Killers album ‘Battle
Born’ because that seems like the sort of album that the cool kids are
listening to these days, at least I that’s what I think they were saying as I eavesdropped
on them at the bus stop, but I digress let’s get on with it.
I won’t bother comparing this to their previous albums
because (A. I don’t really see the point of doing that and (B. I haven’t listened
to any of their other albums in a while and I can’t remember them that well off
the top of my head and I am also too lazy to listen to them all again. None of
this should matter however as I simply want to review the album as a standalone
record.
First off there is the album cover, it’s what I would
consider a pretty bog standard rock album cover, a car driving down a highway
following a horse. Despite it being rather cliché I do quite like it and to be
honest I never notice stuff like that so it must be pretty good.
Now on with the music, the first noticeable thing is that
this is definitely a Killers album, by which I mean there is enough of their
signature sound to make it instantly recognisable as being made by them, so
those fans expecting a drastic departure or a hip hop album or something you
will be quite disappointed. However despite this I think there is enough in the
songs for fans of the band to appreciate. I get the sense that they are trying
to cultivate a more stadium rock type image, though not the Coldplay Mylo Xyloto
douche bag type.[1]
The albums lead single ‘Runaways’ would probably be the best example of this
opinion. Despite a friend of mine describing it as simply ‘noise’ I really like
the song. My first thought upon hearing it was that it sounds a lot like Queen
and as a relative newcomer to Queen[2]
I was pleased by this. I have always considered the Killers to be relatively
soft rock but ‘Runaways’ is a lot louder and punchier. Unfortunately in my
opinion this is the only track that can be described as such as the album slots
back into the more established Killers sound, i.e. softer more ballady type
rock, possibly with the exception of the fifth track ‘A Matter of Time’ which doesn't quite reach the same level but it is still a strong track.
Even though I seem to be lamenting the fact that the album
seems to abandon the louder rockier approach I don’t consider this to be a weak
album at all. There are certainly enough tracks to draw fans of the band in,
though in my opinion I still think it will split fans due to the fact that the
album itself is rather split. What I mean by that is that half of it is louder
and pacier, whilst the other half is slower and more composed. This I think
will mean that some fans will like one half and the rest will like the other
half, but of course I could be totally wrong about that. The best example of
this would be track eight ‘The Rising of the Tide’ which isn't exactly a quiet
acoustic ballad whilst track eleven ‘Be Still’ sounds almost like a gospel song
at points. It see’s Brandon Flowers really stretching his vocal muscles, something
which is actually evident throughout the album. There is even an example of the
split in one song, the albums closer and title track ‘Battle Born’ which is a
mixture of acoustic rock and full on epicness.[3]
In summary then this is a good album in my opinion, it won’t
stand out as one of the greatest albums ever but given the Killer reputation I
think it will do well amongst their fans and may even win a few new people over
thanks to the rockier tracks. It is nice to see them back after 4 years and
Brandon Flowers seems to still have the voice for this type of music, though I
have to admit there are a few points where he can’t quite reach some of the
notes, but overall he has still got it. The rest of the band have done well
also with the music itself pretty much flawless. I would therefore recommend this,
if you can’t afford it just listen on spotify, it’s definitely worth a listen
even if you don’t agree with my opinion, which you probably won’t because I am
normally wrong about everything.
Never mind
Byezeee bye
