Wonderful Wonderful
I thought I would post my thoughts here, as I previously did for Battleborn in 2012. No one uses stupid idiot tumblr anymore but Mindsay is dead and so am I.
1. Wonderful Wonderful- I first heard this song when it came on Spotify so unfortunately my first moment thoughts are lost. My reaction was generally a solid WOWOWOWOWOWOW out of ten though. I stand by it for now. This song is a real treat. I love how ti builds, I love the darkness in it. I love the urgency in the finale. I love the little touches. I love the horn starting off the album. “There are many/ Take the one that leads to the well.” “Clothesline the shame/and you will answer to the rain. Wonderful! Wonderful!” I love this song.
2. The Man- Yeah, so I did not like this single immediately. It’s an ironic take on Flowers’ Hot Fuss/Sam’s Town persona, which I can dig. It’s grown on me. It’s been popular on the charts which was unexpected. I never expect people to like The Killers anymore. USDA CERTIFIED LEAN is the best lyric in 2017. I like the beat. I like the funk, the drums, the bass, the weird guitar sounds in the background of the verses. It sounds like a duet with David Bowie, RIP. How Flowers always finds ways to make his voice sound good in a higher and higher register is wild though. I can’t hit these notes in the car anymore!!
3. Rut- Opening with this, I’m guessing it’s Brandons voice on autotune. Interesting. He has a funny drawl starting out here. I’ll be damned if this doesn’t sound like a Phil Collins song. Boy I wish this was a FLAC. This song is really beautiful. “I’m not like her, you’re not like them”. This song is written from Tana Flowers perspective iirc. “I’ll climb and I’ll climb!” Boy is that a gospel choir in the background holy SHIT this song really built into something I didn’t expect. I am a big fan of this. It ends with the autotune, which I have no strong feelings on at this time. I do wish it got a little bigger, and maybe some strings wouldn’t have hurt. Tommy Marth would have done a great job with his Sax in this song. RIP also, Mr. Marth.
4. Life to Come- Theme so far is “Tana Flowers” in this album. That’s fine. This starts immediately making me think about some of the slower songs on Battle Born. “I’ll dropkick the shame!” I love it. One thing I like already-- these songs sound like they belong together on an album, soundwise. Unlike Battle Born which could very well have been produced by ten thousand different bands. This is alright. Brandon has become such a better singer. This song is nice. It sounds like a healthy mix of Sam’s Town vigor and Day & Age gloss. A good amalgamation of all their styles all pumped together. I like the passion in his voice more than the song itself I think. This isn’t a shakedown! It ends kind of abruptly imo.
5. Run For Cover - So far my favorite single in terms of sounding like how you expect The Killers to sound. Dave said he liked this one best but sort of as a diss to the rest of the album. It sounds kind of out of place after Rut and Life to Come. That’s not a big deal. I want to hear this song live for sure. Lyrically I love this song, I love everything about it. It’s this album’s Runaways. Nice upbeat rocker. ITS EVEN HARDER WHEN THE DIRTBAGS FAMOUS! I can almost see Ronnie’s face drumming in this song. Five Ronnie’s Squinting out of five. The synths after/during the bridge remind me of Flesh & Bone a little, for a second.
6. Tyson Vs. Douglas - I’ve been so excited for this one. I didn’t listen to the live version so I could hear it here first. The synths make me feel like dying they’re so good. I knew when I heard that synth sound live I needed to wait. They sound as good as I hoped. It’s already so nostalgic. This song may as well be about me seeing the Carolina Panthers lose to the damn Patriots back in 2003 when I was 14. I’m still not over that. This song is my favorite so far. I love the whole thing. This is a fantastic Killers song man. The guitar in the bridge is fucking killer Dave. How can you resist this one live my man! Doggone. He was killing it back there. Fuckin’ love this.
7. Some Kind of Love - I’ve been holding out on this one too. I listened to the Eno track back when he said it was based on it. I wondered how they’d work with it to make a song for the whole band. The lyric “You’ve got the soul of a truck on long distance haul” is kind of goofy. That’s Brandon Flowers though. Dude’s goofy. Sincere, always, but goofy. It’s like The Killers as a late nineties soft-rock band, just missing that damn echoey wood-block sound all those songs had. Weird, but I can appreciate it. I would probably skip this most of the time. That part near the end, you can hear something that I think is supposed to be the ocean, that staticy rise and fall before the kids start singing. This song was for Tana, and the whole theme with the shell on Wonderful Wonderful is to be able to hear the ocean no matter where you are, even if there’s nothing left. I like that. It feels almost too intimate, haha.
8. Out of my Mind - Ironically this song has an echoey wood block. right up front!! lol! “I hate when it gets serious, its like we’re going blind, take the needle off the record, I can’t stand another chorus, about Juliet's control, over mystified mankind”. The lyrics flow really well here. There’s so many rich synths in this track, so many interesting and pretty sounds all over the place. Love how the drums slam there before the chorus after the second verse. Wow this song is interesting. It’s like a dance-rock song, it honestly reminds me of some stuff off of Daft Punk’s Discovery album during the “Oh, we’re falling” section at the end. I like this. It’s strange and fun and nice.
9. The Calling - Great job Woody. The rhythm and guitar and bass and everything in this track is sexy as all hell dude, that’s just me though. This probably should have been a single instead of Wonderful Wonderful, despite how much I love Wx2. This sounds more like a radio song. “Hope they fix it all up in post”. The bridge though. FUCK me. This is great. I’m gonna be all over this track this week. Brother, just lean in to the light. Even if you have trouble with Brandon’s faith in God, which I admittedly do not, it would be easy to swept in the sound of this song.
10. Have All the Songs Been Written? - I been excited for this one. His voice sounds like it’s right beside you on the mix. Guitar sounds bluesy. I love it. Very rich. All I got to say bad about this song is I wish it was longer. I could go for 8 minutes of this. I really like it though.
Overall, for once since Sam’s Town it sounds like a cohesive whole album with good solid production. I’m excited to hear the bonus tracks as well, but this is going to do it for me. I’m satisfied, I like the direction, and I’m ready to start it all over again.
