by The Cowl Editor on October 5, 2017
Arts & Entertainment
by Julia Vaccarella ’20
A&E Staff
Despite widespread rumors that the group had agreed to part ways altogether, The Killers are back again. With the recent debut of their fifth studio album Wonderful Wonderful on Sept. 22, the Las Vegas natives are once again topping the charts.
The Killers are notably recognized for their explosion into the alternative music scene in the early 2000s. Some of their most popular songs include “Mr. Brightside” and “Somebody Told Me,” both of which come off an earlier album entitled Hot Fuss (2004).
The lead-up to the release of Wonderful Wonderful was initiated by frontman Brandon Flowers and guitarist Dave Keuning. In 2015, the band started planning the album and spent time recording from September 2016 to May 2017. Wonderful Wonderful boasts 10 songs, all of which are absent of features. In total, the record has a 43 minute duration.
Prior to the Sept. 22 release of the entire album, The Killers released and performed two singles on this album, “The Man” and “Run for Cover,” both of which were available on iTunes and other music streaming platforms.
Metacritic, a music review site which bases its ratings on a variety of sources, has assigned Wonderful Wonderful a rating of 71 on a scale of 1 to 100.
Critical rating aside, Flowers has commented on his own personal attachment to the album. He stated to a source at Entertainment Weekly, “In your head it’s about being tough and bringing home the bacon, but what I’ve come to find is it’s really more about empathy and compassion.” In a Rolling Stone article from August, Flowers said that he “put [in] more of an effort to be more personal on this record.”
On the album, Flowers explores the struggles that he and his wife have faced in coping with her depression and post traumatic stress disorder, which is heard particularly on the track “Rut.”
“Tyson vs. Douglas” also adopts the emotionality that is present in all of the songs of Wonderful Wonderful. Here, Flowers sings about the 1990 fight between Buster Douglas and Mike Tyson, which he watched as a young boy. The song explores the vulnerability of childhood and what it is like to see the demise of someone who was one time revered as an undefeatable hero.
The Killers’ tour officially kicks off on Oct. 8 at Austin City Limits in Austin, Texas, and will conclude internationally in Melbourne, Australia, on May 5, 2018.
With the positive reception of Wonderful Wonderful, fans are hopeful that The Killers will continue to create and perform new music.