The steely ambition of Brandon Flowers and his odd bunch of neanderthal rock drummers and strange guitar playing dandies mean they think they can turn their hand to any genre and come up with amazing results - wrong.

Despite being regarded as an influential release, 2004’s debut ‘Hot Fuss’ only contained three classic songs amongst the dirge. The follow up, 2006’s ‘Sam’s Town’ fared better longevity-wise with its swift change from 80s influenced pop to widescreen 70s rock gaining as many new fans as they lost - so onto this, their third effort.

Ironic 80s pop has been on the indie agenda for a while from Neon Neon to Keane, taking in the glorious pop nugget of The Mystery Jet’s ‘Two doors down’ and an endless list of bands barely born in the 80s mimicking it.
Moving from the chest beating, stone washed denim Americana of Sam’s Town’ to camp euro pop and new wave is not much of a surprise, especially considering last years dreadful disco cover of Joy Division’s ‘Shadowplay’ or the best track on ‘Sam’s Town’, the white boy funk of ‘Where the white boys dance’ and then there are the mixes of their tracks by luminaries such as Thin White Duke and Pet Shop Boys.

Stuart Price, in his Thin White Duke guise produces both ‘Day and Age’ and Keane’s recent album ‘Perfect symmetry’ but, unlike his other production projects, his influence is understated apart from the oddly Eurovisionesque comeback single ‘Human’. Price has made some of the best dance music of this decade and on her ‘Confessions on a dance floor’ album, made Madonna relevant for at least three songs, ‘Human’ however doesn’t work; its cheese level will guarantee you have nightmares for weeks.

There are, however, plenty of tracks which bode well for the The Killers; opener ‘Losing Touch’ has a barrage of sax and synthetic 80s sounds and comes on like an off cut from David Bowie’s 1980 album ‘Scary Monsters’. ‘Spaceman’ is unashamedly poppy and a definite highlight with Flowers at his most bombastic yelping “And the public don’t dwell on my transmission, cos it wasn’t televised” over enthusiastic 80s drum breakdowns and a genius refrain of several “oh oh ohs”.
‘Joy-Ride’ (yep, the lyrics stick to cars, girls and the ocean as usual) is the most bizarre thing they’ve made, fusing calypso, funk and a nod to dodgy 80s one hit wonder Belouis Some with yet another splattering of the saxophone, its oddness is what makes it work.

It’s when The Killers go into autopilot ‘Day and Age’ fails, as their previous two albums did. Odd Gregorian chant like backing vocal effects and rolling drum beats are the only thing of interest in the obligatory nod to U2, as all bands of The Killers standing love doing on the anonymous ‘This is your life’.
It is this track which highlights the failings of The Killers, for every high, there are more lows.
Every middle sized band goes down the U2 route and normally fail, only U2 can succeed in being U2 so annoyingly and for each average album The Killers release, their ambition to be as big as them is becoming increasingly unattainable.
6/10 Chris Todd