The Killers

Pressure Machine, The Killers’ second album in nearly less than a year, finds the band scaling back the Las Vegas grandiosity found on 2020’s fantastic Imploding The Mirage and trading it in for a personal concept album based on frontman Brandon Flowers youth in the small town of Nephi, Utah during the ‘90s.

Knowing that Flowers has an enormous amount of admiration for Bruce Springsteen, one would think this is The Killers’ attempt at making their own version of Springsteen’s 1982 classic, Nebraska. The key word there being attempt. Flowers' spends so much time driving the point home that Nephi is a “small town” by repeating the phrase over and over. He also lays on the Americana imagery so thick that it comes off clunky and gives you the impression that half the things he’s writing about he’s never actually done in real life. Lines like “Drinking whiskey from a plastic jug” and “If I shut my mouth and keep the peace/She’ll cook my eggs in bacon grease” are downright cringeworthy.

In between songs are bits of interviews with random residents of Nephi that were recorded by NPR. The townspeople tell stories of opioid addiction, spirituality, death and the Ute Stampede. These interview clips have a bleakness to them and so much potential to be used in an impactful way. Especially the interview where a man recounts how a train that runs through Nephi results in a few deaths per year. The song that follows this interview, Quiet Town, just does not match in tone and feels too upbeat for the subject matter. That’s not to say that the instrumentation on the album is bad though. It’s actually quite good and marks the return of guitarist Dave Keuning who has been sorely missed.

There are a couple moments of greatness however on tracks like “Desperate Things” and “Runaway Horses” featuring an appearance from Phoebe Bridgers. “Desperate Things” is the supreme highlight on the album. It’s a song that could easily be put side by side with anything on Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska and might very well be one of the best songs The Killers have ever written. It’s an example of just how good this album could have been.

By: Chris Fitzgerald