fixin' to carve this out of wood

It kinda bugs me when artists and bands release a single months before a new album is released. Because I end up overplaying the single and I'm bored with it by the time the album is out. I swore this would be the case with Brandon Flowers' "Crossfire". Watch the video:


All a good music video needs is Charlize Theron and a few ninjas. It's that simple.

But I didn't get sick of "Crossfire". I still get pumped every time I hear the distant piano and delayed guitars in the song's intro.

Incidentally, the first time I heard "Crossfire" I didn't feel one way or another about it. I should've known that I would end up loving it because my feelings (or lack thereof) were the same on my first couple spins through The Killers' Sam's Town, the band's best album (I have to say though, Day & Age has grown on my quite a bit, more than I had expected it to).

The interesting thing about Mr. Flowers -- interesting to me, anyway -- is that we belong to the same faith. So when he releases a solo album, Flamingo, rife with religious allusions and spiritual insecurities, I'm bound to sit up and listen a little more than if, say, Rivers Cuomo were to start writing songs about the earthly limbo between "heaven and hell".

Maybe that's what has drawn me to The Killers, the fact that I feel like Brandon understands when I struggle to live up to my faith as completely as I should (see songs like "All These Things That I've Done" and "When You Were Young"). And while Flamingo offers its fair share of commiseration and empathy, at least one track offers something that I haven't found as much of in the Killers' releases: hope. It's one thing to say, "Yeah, I've been there," but it's so much better to say, "Here's how I got out." You can hear the latter on this song, "Magdalena":


I need that vest (although I'd probably have to lose about 40 pounds to rock it as well as he does). I love the key change after the bridge.

As an album, Flamingo isn't perfect. The songwriting sags a bit in the middle and album's closer is a bit on the weak side (this is remedied by buying the deluxe version -- bonus tracks!). But in the end, if Brandon continued to put out albums of this caliber at The Killers' expense, I might not mind.