01. “Flesh and Bone”
02. “Runaways”
03. “The Way It Was”
04. “Here with Me”
05. “A Matter of Time”
06. “Deadlines and Commitments”
07. “Miss Atomic Bomb”
08. “The Rising Tide”
09. “Heart of a Girl”
10. “From Here on Out”
11. “Be Still”
12. “Battle Born”
13. “Carry Me Home”
14. “Flesh And Bone (Jacques lu Cont Remix)”
15. “Prize Fighter”

Musicians:
    Brandon Flowers – lead vocals, synthesizers
    Dave Keuning – guitar, background vocals
    Mark Stoermer – bass guitar, background vocals
    Ronnie Vannucci – drums, percussion, background vocals

Since 2004’s British-flavoured debut Hot Fuss, The Killers have embraced the American landscape with an authenticity UK bands can only dream about. With nothing but horizons in every direction, their immersion in Vegas is now complete: like Springsteen is New Jersey, The Killers are inseparable from Nevada. Hammering this point home, they have taken the name for this fourth album proper from the state flag, and it’s the distillation of everything they have done before.

It is surprising how patchy The Killers’ albums have been, a trend bucked by Brandon Flowers’ solo album Flamingo. Battle Born sits closest to 2006’s Sam’s Town, their album most lacking in great tunes, but lead single Runaways casts fears into the roadside dust. It sounds exactly how you would hope: military drums and epic verses, sparking wanderlust like a complimentary Cadillac. Opener Flesh and Bone sounds nervous, but its red-in-the-face bluster soon settles, and the band finds its stride, Flowers singing of prom queens and lonesome dreams of twists of fate.

Deserts have a tendency to make bands serious, and The Killers are no exception – although the slightly formulaic Here With Me actually channels Simple Minds’ Belfast Child rather than U2. But if The Way It Was sounded any bigger it might be mistaken for Meat Loaf, albeit if he’d bundled Foreigner, John Steinbeck and a-ha into four glorious minutes.

Big guitars riff over widescreen escapism, until the synth-driven Deadlines and Commitments takes a break from the manly power chords, and then Miss Atomic Bomb sketches American 60s innocence watching nuclear-testing mushroom clouds while picnicking. The surging Rising Tide struts and flicks its microphone cable like it’s been around forever, before Heart of a Girl finally succumbs to U2 influences, serving as the album’s One. The title track is as triumphant as a song called Battle Born should be.

Flowers’ recent declaration to NME that “everything will work (if) the songs are right” applies equally to his band as it does life in general. And Battle Born is a belter, an album made for bedrooms, stadiums and old-school denim jacket patches alike. --- Tom Hocknell, BBC Review

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1 	Wonderful Wonderful 	5:09
2 	The Man 	4:10
3 	Rut 	4:24
4 	Life To Come 	4:31
5 	Run For Cover 	3:42
6 	Tyson vs Douglas 	4:33
7 	Some Kind Of Love 	4:38
8 	Out Of My Mind 	3:43
9 	The Calling 	4:01
10 	Have All The Songs Been Written? 	4:09
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11 	Money On Straight 	3:34
12 	The Man (Jacques Lu Cont Remix)	4:15
13 	The Man (Duke Dumont Remix)	3:51

Bass – Mark Stoermer
Drum – Ronnie Vannucci
Guitar – Dave Keuning, Mark Stoermer
Vocals – Brandon Flowers

Recent departures from the Killers’ touring lineup have led Brandon Flowers to steer the ship through personal and global storms. On the band’s first album for five years, the frontman sounds as if he is howling in the face of an oncoming hurricane of mid-career panic, cheating senators and “fake news”. Guitars rage, electronic noises shriek. The Calling and the defiantly swaggering The Man come armed with a new funk chassis. However, beneath the epic gloss, vulnerability fires their best songs in a decade. The keyboard-driven, poppy Tyson vs Douglas positions Flowers as a fading champion. Rut and the title track channel his wife’s battles with PTSD. Then, Brian Eno co-write Some Kind of Love finds the Killers at their most beautifully ethereal. Finally, Have All the Songs Been Written? (a title knowingly suggested by Bono) finds Flowers confronting self-doubt to emerge as a latter-day Roy Orbison. This is certainly big music, which is all the better for its more intimate, touching soul. --Dave Simpson, theguardian.com

Poprzedni nieudany album "Battle Born" mocno podważył zaufanie fanów do zespołu. Najnowszym krążkiem The Killers odkupują swoje grzechy, wracają do swoich korzeni. Należą przecież do prekursorów nowej rockowej rewolucji, która dała kopa młodzieżowej muzyce na początku wieku.

The Killers pochodząca z Las Vegas grupa wyróżniała się na tle podobnym im wykonawcom zza oceanu umiłowaniem do brytyjskiej muzyki lat 80. Szczególnie upodobali sobie U2, a lider Brandon Flower wokalnie wręcz naśladuje Bono. To niejedyne inspiracje The Killers.

Na "Wonderful Wonderful" można doszukać się wpływu Joy Division, Duran Duran, A-ha, INXS, Roxy Music, New Order, Queen, Petera Gabriela i Chrisa De Burgha. Oniryczny "Some Kind of Love" opiera się na samplu z nagrania Briana Eno z lat 80., a roztańczony "The Men" - Kool & The Gang.

Choć wiele tu cytatów, to trudno odmówić amerykańskiej grupie talentu do tworzenia bezbłędnych, łatwo przyswajalnych dla fanów rocka i popu przebojów. The Killers wrócili na właściwą ścieżkę i oby więcej z niej nie zbaczali. ---Grzegorz Dusza, audio.com.pl

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