In the distant past, ambiguous lyrics and head banging riffs a la “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (1991) were enough to make hits; today, a similar attempt would not fare as well with a critical audience. Unfortunately for The Killers, that’s all their newest album Wonderful Wonderful (2017) seems to present–a confused series of songs with equally lost synths. For a band whose relevance, apart from the occasional meme, has fallen into relative obscurity, this seems to be a last ditch effort for The Killers to gather their wits into Top 40 wonderland.
While Wonderful Wonderful does present some gems lyrically, such as “Some Kind of Love” and “The Calling,” these are but the few songs where the often poetically confused band actually attempts to tell a story. Unfortunately for The Killers, this does not happen quite enough for it to work as an album as it commits the ultimate sin of any good record–the failure to tell a story. Songs such as “Rut,” “Life to Come,” and “Have All the Songs Been Written” seem to be self-aware that this wasn’t the best album. With lyrics like “Don’t give up on me” and “Have a little faith in me,” it is as if The Killers are already setting themselves up for disaster and simply asking their listeners to hang on.
Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, within the first 20 minutes of listening to the album, one just feels terribly underwhelmed by the dull thrashing of a seemingly nonsensical teenager. Their vocals are drowned out by the overused echoing of a keyboard that never left the ‘80s and loud guitar riffs that blare when nothing can be said. Not without effort, The Killers try to mediate this with the use of a consistent legato synth to back most of its tracks. However, it seems too out of place with their more rock-leaning identity.
The band’s inability to grasp the sound they were going for further muddles the musical experience of this album. With such a strong opening track such as “Wonderful Wonderful,” one would expect a consistency of strong beats, dark tones, and half moaned choruses. Alas, this otherwise thematic opening is met with the funky rhythms and pop choruses of “The Man.” This is then followed by either late 2000s pop punk reincarnations or something trying too hard to emulate both Eurythmics and Cyndi Lauper. This lack of cohesiveness and clarity leads Wonderful Wonderful into the mishmash of trying to be either its own synth-filled, ‘80s teen movie OST or another turn of the century punk band trying to make the Memphis Group into a sound.
In all its nonsense, there are still heavenly moments that make it seem like Wonderful Wonderful does want to say something, especially in songs like “Calling,” “Some Kind of Love,” and “Run for Cover.” While the lyrics are nothing to applaud over, the distant humming melody of a keyboard’s deep vibrato allows depth that verbosity cannot provide.
For all its bombastic grandeur, it seems that The Killers’ newest album has yet to figure out what exactly it wants to achieve. In the end, though, Wonderful Wonderful provides us with a taste of The Killers’ new sound. The fact that it is an album and not just a throwaway playlist needs time to sink in. It still has an awfully long way to go, and the lyric “Don’t give up on me” has to mean a little bit more than a plea, but the gems are there. The Killers just has to work on them.
Rating: 2/5
Photo retrieved from: http://www.musicfestnews.com.