At least this one wasn’t released on Twitter. The Killers are back and have taken to the halls of acceptable release platforms. This is not The New Norm Show, your Christmas song cannot stay on a platform of bile and ill will. Bright Lights, the latest track from Las Vegas-birthed but Brit-defined band The Killers is a stormer. What Brandon Flowers and the band are great at still is finding a new route to energy. When your sugar levels have crashed and you feel the bags under your eyes stiffen, there is nothing quite like Human or an equally charged track from the band to make you stretch those arms and legs. Such is life behind the desk, boxes and boxes of books threatening to collapse and kill in an intricate horror to the late Floyd Collins.
But enough of caverns. Stand in the darkness and have nothing on you. The Killers are reacting to the monumental success of where they are by feeling for the risk and reward of their earliest years. Reach out into those hot and desolate plains of Las Vegas as they drift through with a loose heartland rock riff. Bright Lights is a neat song, an enjoyable effort for a band who have frustrated themselves with scrapping material and seeking a sound they feel is a respectable identity. They have already scrapped one album and made up for it with a best-of compilation featuring one of the salvaged tracks. Bright Lights is either an indicator of where The Killers is headed or another of the scrapped variety. It is likely the former. Hopefully, anyway.
These lighter flourishes and the sudden raising of the lyrical bar are magnificent. The Killers at their best, something they have not charted in a long while. They have not forgotten their roots – as much is clear with the dedication Flowers has to fronting the band and not pursuing some solo ventures. He has not flown the nest and in longevity, there is the opportunity to harvest moments of pleasant camaraderie on the road. These instrumentals are not just a joyous occasion with flashes of Bruce Springsteen heartland consistency, but they are the bright lights Flowers sings of. The Killers rise to the occasion, not at the first port of call but at least they are reviving their engaged and upbeat sound. Bright Lights is a band looking back, but in doing so they career further forward than they have in a decade.
If it were not for their sparkling gems in the earliest sections of their discography then The Killers could well be defined by Bright Lights. Flowers has the voice for heartland rock and the band falls in line well. Punchy, visceral and fun. Those are the three guiding rules for this Bright Lights release. Backing vocalists and a warm, infectiously catchy tempo makes it hard to hate. Flowers and the band offer themselves the chance to be proud of where they have come from, how far they have been on this road and how well they are managing the push away from their defining songs. The Killers reinvent themselves partially with this one. They have bounced back from scrapping a whole album worth of recordings with a fresh sound to kick on with, and what a joy it is to hear.
