The Killers - Imploding The Mirage (Review)
The Killers - Imploding The Mirage (Review)
9/4/20
DISCLAIMER: Sorry, but we plan to have a lot of reviews this month, (mostly if not all music), mainly covering the end of August. October should be a more game-focused month, and will bring some more interesting and unique essays.
Everyone associates 2000s rock band The Killers with their first albums big single "Mr. Brightside". The song's known for a variety of reasons; some for its famous use of panning during the intro, and others for the songs catchiness and lyrics. Ever since said first album, The Killers have descended further and further into averageness with nearly every record they make. There may have been some highlights on their last album "Wonderful Wonderful", and more on other albums, but nothing quite reached the critical acclaim that "Hot Fuss" did. After a series of some forgettable albums, one never has the right to lose hope for a band. Tons of bands have come back from bad eras, which is why this new album, "Imploding The Mirage", is going to be a very interesting listen.
The Killers' style has kept fans interest with its somewhat unique mesh of 80s synth-pop and 2000s rock. Their songs can be very diverse in many areas, but they mostly stay within the bounds of this overall style. This certainly isn't a bad thing, but it really shows in this new album of theirs. We kick off with "My Own Soul's Warning", which is by no means a terrible song, but there's nothing special or grasping about it. At first, I was sort of a fan of this style, and while it never got very repetitive in the album, the whole project just felt very formulaic. It seemed every song followed a very distinct structure. Not an objectively bad one, but one that feels surprisingly overused when every song is trapped in such strict boundaries. It really removes any interest the lyrics or composition could've provided with slight tweaks to differentiate each song. The album never feels like it has a clear start or finish either. Generally in albums like this, the bands and artists like to keep at least the introduction and finishing tracks on different spectrums to show the arc of the album. This album never seemed to have an arc when you look outside of the lyrics here. It was hard to pick a favorite and least favorite song because there wasn't a single song that stood out.
Despite this album being far too consistent in its songs, this album has many good things about it. Due to the fact that each song is so consistent, there weren't many objectively bad songs. Pretty much every song here had a nice synth-pop or more rock-style groove to it which never failed to impress. While the album title came off pretty cheesy at first, the album goes into much more death about what the "mirage" is. While this doesn't create a distinct story, it still displays a clear recurring metaphor which is just enough to suffice for an album like this. Of course nearly everyone has a different definition of what makes an album good, and it would be completely understandable if this was someone's favorite album of 2020, for example. While this album was, at many times, nothing special, many tracks could be something special on their own. It's hard to say if this is a generally good album or not, but it is not a terrible collection of songs.
In conclusion, this album did a completely understandable thing and decided not to risk anything, which was a risky move on its own. When you would hear the word "album", many would associate it with an even semi-cohesive progression, which this album almost entirely lacks. Though, that's not to say the songs themselves aren't good; many of which are ones you might want to come back to after your first listen. My favorite track was probably "Running Towards A Place". This isn't for a very particular reason, it just pulled off this albums very particular style very well, and the lyrics were very nice. My least favorite track was "Imploding The Mirage". It's pretty outraging when the end of an album could be so bland and seemingly devoid of any sort of purpose. This wasn't a terrible track, and alone "Fire And Bone" would be my least favorite. Though, this ending the album was a pretty terrible decision, and it was angering enough to switch a few of my least favorites around. Giving this album a 1-10 using half numbers, I give this album a 6.5/10 with a five-word description of: "good, but too stylistically strict".
Image sources (in order):
Comments
Post a Comment