The debate between whether Record Club should review old albums or new albums
Here's the main takeaway for a lot of anonymous avatars on Twitter: the Killers sure do sound like the War on Drugs these days. If that's annoying praise, then it's only because it's an obvious conclusion. It's not annoying because it's wrong, or that there's anyone out there who doesn't want it to be true; the War on Drugs kick ass. (It's not even annoying that I already unwittingly connected those dots a year ago when some shitty Record Club band sounded like an off-brand version of both bands at the same time.)
But if we're assuming a correlation and not a causation, then we must also consider the fact that there is indeed a common-causal variable, and its name is Bruce Springsteen. I don't think the Killers made it a secret that Springsteen is their big inspiration, at least not since their second (and best) album, Sam's Town. There's a lot of Springsteen here, even if the particular strain heartland rock on Imploding the Mirage feels more like a plastic Las Vegas version of Springsteen's authentic brand.
That's probably my biggest takeaway from Imploding the Mirage, to be honest—I'm starting to understand for the first time in my life the staggering influence of Bruce Springsteen on all the music that I tend to love the most, and I'm learning to appreciate him for pushing music in the direction he did during his heyday.
In an unpublished 2018 interview for the defunct blog Beeing There., Mandy asked me what it was like growing up in the "Church of Springsteen," and I was forced to admit that really wasn't the case. I like singing "Thunder Road" in the summer, but otherwise, even by 2018, I didn't really understand Springsteen. Maybe I still don't, but I'm waking up to the fact that everything he ever did was gold, and his significance in the history of music (my music, anyway) is massive and cannot be overstated.
Not that Bruce deserves all the credit for the Killers' Imploding the Mirage. Brandon Flowers deserves some too. I feel like I already covered this in greater detail earlier this year, but the fact of the matter is that Flowers can sing the most saccharine, nonsensical bullshit ever put in print, and when he sings it, it sounds like poetry. He elevates the hokiest bullshit, and since the name of the game with the Killers is "hokey," then we should all be thankful that Flowers is still at the helm.
The man is fucking unstoppable on Imploding the Mirage, from the opening salvo of "My Own Soul's Warning" (this album really does sound like the War on Drugs, by the way), to the closing '80s dance-step cheese of the title track, all the way through some monsters ("Caution" is so fucking good) and some weird tropical-tinged mid-tempo synth boppers ("Fire in Bone" is goofy as shit but I guess it still works). There isn't much here that doesn't work.
Honestly, even at their worst (Battle Born, parts of Day & Age), the Killers are still fucking great. This isn't even close to being their worst art. There are some days that I think that this new album might be the second-best Killers album (on the fence about its head-to-head with Hot Fuss, and Sam's Town forever). But if a band can be bad and still be enjoyable, then what happens when a band is inexplicably good once yet again? You get Imploding the Mirage.
I don't know if this is because I've had an extra few weeks to process this, or it's because of the War on Drugs comparison, or it's because of the obvious debt to Springsteen, or it's because I'm a secret Killers apologist, or it's because Brandon Flowers can do no wrong, or it's because this is just a legitimately a great album in a vacuum. Doesn't matter. I love it.
GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5
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