The Killers: Sawdust

By Keith Phipps | November 20, 2007 | 7:27pm

Music Reviews Music

It takes chutzpah to
release a B-sides and rarities collection after putting out only two albums,
especially when one of those albums can politely be called disappointing. But
The Killers have never been short on chutzpah. Singer Brandon Flowers and the
band traffic in the kind of over-the-top passion best put across by swelling
synthesizers, ringing guitar, and heart-on-sleeve lyrics that only stop making
sense if you think about them.

With last year's Sam's
Town, the
band attempted to hide what they do best beneath working-class flannel, so it
makes sense that some of Sawdust's best moments are Sam's Town rejects that sound like
they were discarded for sounding too much like Hot Fuss. "All The Pretty Faces,"
for one, sounds like the last hit single Fuss never produced, and on
"Sweet Talk" and "Where The White Boys Dance," the band lets its love of
synth-pop float to the top.

Though covers of Dire
Straits' "Romeo And Juliet" and Joy Division's "Shadowplay" stick a little too
close to their sources to develop any real personality (and it's best just to
skip the country classic "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town"), there's a neat
bit of hero worship on the newly recorded "Tranquilize." The band coaxes the most
engaged vocal out of guest star Lou Reed that anyone's heard in years. If they
can break him out of his perpetual grumping, it gets easier to forget about a
misstep here and there.

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