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  1. I was gonna wait til tomorrow but since it leaked...

    Songs ordered by preference after first listen through:
    1. The Man (my favourite Killers song, so not too surprising it's on top!)
    2. The Calling
    3. Wonderful Wonderful (could swap with 4)
    4. Out of My Mind (could swap with 3)
    5. Run For Cover
    6. Tyson vs. Douglas
    7. Have All the Songs Been Written?
    8. Some Kind of Love
    9. Life To Come
    10. Rut

    Rut just felt pretty dull to me, which is a shame because I can sense bits of a much better Killers song in there. Some Kind of Love is a nice song but it feels like a demo, like there were parts of it that they were still writing. Tyson vs. Douglas is strong musically, but I'm not totally sold on it lyrically. Life To Come felt like totally autopiloted Killers, nothing special about it with some pretty dumb lyrics, though it's not BAD, per se. Have All the Songs Been Written? wasn't as anthemic as I though it'd be and its biggest problem is that it just sort of... ends. For a final track with a rather final theme on what could be a final album, it needed to have an outro at least a good half-minute longer.

    As for my top 5, I can't complain about them. They all are really good songs in my book, fun to listen to. Wonderful Wonderful is a pretty weird tune, I dig the desert imagery. Run For Cover has some nice political digs in it, something I can't really remember much of the Killers doing before.

    Basically, the album didn't live up to my expectations, though I'm not really disappointed in it. It's probably gonna end up as #4 for me - behind Battle Born and ahead of Day and Age. I'm sure I'll listen to about half of this album repeatedly, and probably pretty much never touch two or three of these of these songs except when I play it all the way through. I'd say in general it's got more 'higher highs' than Battle Born did for me, but more 'lower lows' too. For Battle Born, I really love four songs (Deadlines and Commitments, The Rising Tide, Be Still, Battle Born) and the other eight are all pretty samey in terms of quality. Here, I think there's kind of a big break - for me, my favourite Killers song, plus four others on par with at least two of the four highs from Battle Born, but Wonderful Wonderful does seem to have songs that I feel are actually a step down in quality.

    Overall, this a four-star record for me. Probably something like 7/10 overall. It's a very pensive record on the whole, which sometimes helps and sometimes hinders it. It feels like it kind of lacks a direction other than that most of the songs seem to focus on some sort of fatigue or restlessness. Not bad though, I think it'll grow a bit on me. I'm very happy with half of it, and none of the songs are actually bad (though Rut is one of the few Killers songs I'd say is around there....)

    Anyway, hoping this isn't the end for them. They've surely still got songs to write and play.
  2. Also, the bass on Wonderful Wonderful really reminds me of the bass on Bullet the Blue Sky.
  3. Originally posted by LikeASong:Have All the Songs Been Written? This one has, for sure: Mark Knopfler wrote it 30 years ago. Still sounds like an interesting ballad.
    LOL I wrote this before knowing that Mark Knopfler actually FEATURES on Have All The Songs
  4. Finally getting around to listening to Wonderful Wonderful now.
  5. I'm away from home after the JT San Diego show, but I'm looking forward to listening when I get back. Based on CM's review, it seems like it is gonna be close to what I expected from them at this point.
  6. Finally got a chance to listen to the album this morning - or what I would call a really fucking great Killers EP buried inside an album where it's surrounded by borefests and perfect examples of Brandon's terrible writing.

    Wonderful Wonderful
    The Man
    Run for Cover
    Tyson vs. Douglas
    Out of my Mind
    The Calling

    These songs are all fantastic and I think I might just make a playlist of these songs alone. I don't think they're as strong as other hits in The Killers work, but I think if they had an album of songs at this quality and not these songs and 4 ballads that are pretty shit, we might've had a great album on ours hands. Killers album? No - and that's because it's totally clear that Dave had barely any input on this thing. It's not just the fact that there aren't many notable guitar parts or guitar-led songs, it's that the guitars that ARE there are buried in the songs as random little filler parts instead of big huge riffs that lead the song. Even Battle Born still had those. The Way It Was, Battle Born, Runaways, etc. - say what you will about the album but it still sounded like the band we had known up to that point (still progressively getting worse and worse though).

    Anyway, these songs are pretty great, maybe because they sound like Dave might've actually played on them, who knows.
  7. ^ agreed. And Dave isn't even a brilliant guitar player, he's pretty standard... But you notice when he's not there.
  8. Yeah, agreed. He's never been a strong enough player or writer to be counted amongst the best, but he's definitely made their music better and their best songs could probably be attributed to riffs he's played and written(?)

    It's sad that it seems like that's gone forever. Ah well, time to go spin Sam's Town again
  9. This has always been the blessing/curse for The Killers. I've mentioned before that Brandon is probably the only career musician in the group while the rest of them pursue it almost as a hobby. When they are all feeling it, you've got magic on your hands. But when one of them is off things really feel off.
  10. I really like Rut and Life To Come
  11. Say what you please about the album, but the set ain't half bad:

  12. Change Your Mind to open the encore ♥ ♥ ♥

    And for the part that's not seen:

    Change Your Mind
    THings To Come
    Tyson vs Douglas
    When You Were Young

    And Ronnie losing his shit from 3:45 on... unvaluable: