Login

u/cravin_blade

Reviewing The Killers’ Discography: Day & Age
▲ 31 r/TheKillers

Reviewing The Killers’ Discography: Day & Age

I have always been surprised that Day & Age doesn’t receive the same amount of hype or consensus positive reception as Hot Fuss and Sam’s Town. To me, it succeeds at something that is incredibly difficult to pull off: making an album where many of the tracks are experimental and distinctive while somehow turning all of them into a cohesive listening experience as a whole.

You have Losing Touch as an energetic rock opener, the dancey energy of Human and Spaceman, the emotional powerhouse that is A Dustland Fairytale all in the same album as tracks like I Can’t Stay, which sounds like it could be straight out of Disney’s The Little Mermaid. And it all works so well.

The World We Live In has to be a top 10 of all-time from The Killers for me, and is my favorite track on Day & Age. It is just so dynamic and cinematic.

Goodnight, Travel Well is a perfect closer. You can hear in the percussion a ticking clock counting down the end of the listening experience, and you can almost picture yourself watching the sun rise over the mosaic desert landscape on the album cover (I LOVE the aesthetic of Day & Age)

I have a pretty controversial opinion in that if you put Hot Fuss and Day & Age in front of me, I am picking Day & Age most of the time.

What do you think about this album? It seems to be a bit more divisive than others.

youtu.be
u/cravin_blade — 6 days ago
▲ 0 r/TheKillers

Let’s get this out of the way - this is just my opinion. I am not here to say this album is objectively bad, and I envy fans of the band who this album clicks for. I love The Killers, and I urge you to check out my last 3 reviews as evidence. That said, I have little love for Battle Born. It’s the only album of theirs I don’t even have saved on apple music.

A few things that make this a miss for me:

  1. Weak overall album aesthetic/theme. While this is not a critique of solely the music, the art direction and song titles of Battle Born feel soulless and generic compared to their other albums. It lacks a strong album identity

  2. Forgettable and repetitive songs. I always end up skipping about half of the tracklist because the songs don’t do enough to stand out from one another. They almost all feel like they are missing that special something that The Killers usually deliver

  3. Poor pacing. This is what really does it for me. The tracklist feels like it was assembled with no thought or care. Putting a song like “From Here on Out” in between “Heart of a Girl” and “Be Still” is jarring and just one example of the overall album flow being a bit of a mess in my opinion

All of that being said, I LOVE Flesh & Bone, Miss Atomic Bomb and Battle Born (the track). I’ve tried and failed for years to enjoy this album, but sometimes you just have to accept something isn’t going to click.

Check out the video review for more detail on each track.

u/cravin_blade — 15 days ago