Pressure Machine - The Killers: Review
The Killers
are a Las Vegas based indie and heartland rock band who have undergone a bit of a transition in sonic approach as their songwriting matures. Pressure Machine follows last years Imploding The Mirage and sees Foxygen's Jonathan Rado returning on production for a set of tracks inspired by frontman Brandon Flowers childhood in Utah.
Review By Lav:
It's no secret that I've been a fan of The Killers for a very long time and I've dished out positive praise to the band repeatedly since I started reviewing. Last years My Own Souls Warning saw the band leaning into Springsteen aesthetics more than ever before and recruiting Jonathan Rado from another one of my favorite bands Foxygen to ham it up instrumentally to great effect. I was excited to see Rado unite again with the band on Pressure Machine, but this record is a very different beast from Soul's or really from anything else in the bands discography. Brandon Flowers and company pen their most folk inspired effort yet with a rich series of narratives serving a compelling concept throughout.
There's no point in wasting any more time let me just say I like this record a lot. Most of the 50 minutes here are dedicated to delivering stories inspired by Brandon's upbringing in a small town in Utah, but these sensations are applicable to small rural towns everywhere. If you're like me and the thought of too much open space is terrifying to your city girl brain, it's really easy to buy into this concept. But even if you don't have that emotional head start the stories across this record are potent and the repeated tragedy is likely to wear you down until you believe in the potent toxicity of small town living.
So lets get into the best of those stories, and the record doesn't waste much time in that regard. West Hills opens up the whole record with interview recordings that set up the sensation of isolation from being in a small town. The song itself is a spacious creeping ballad with a distinctly tragic narrative at its core. I love that the song lyrically dives into the stranglehold that faith has on the character and the final two minutes are a dramatic and climactic build. It shares compositionally familiar elements of The Killers music but with a story that parallels Utah and the Mormonism Flowers experienced as a youth. Quiet Town is up next and its a heartland style tumbling folk rock anthem with harmonicas, sweet keys and an infectious guitar riff. Behind this accessible sound its hiding a pretty dark narrative about kids dying by suicide and drug overdose and how the residents carry on as if nothing has ever happened. The song portrays the rumors and whispers that make their way around the titular quiet town in a way that is sneakily very scary. Even if the song has a big of a hokey sonic aesthetic to it The Killers are certainly a band capable of pulling that off and its a compelling dichotomy.
Terrible Thing is one of my favorite songs here, a quiet and patient acoustic cut about a gay youth grappling with the difficulties of his sexuality not fitting into the religious overtones of his community. The story is one that feels tragically familiar and Brandon delivers it with an emotionally deft hand making the repetition of the title "terrible thing" quite an impactful moment. Despite how reserved it sounds it's one of the most memorable songs on the record. While were dealing in slow burners Runaway Horses is the saddest song on the record which of course means it features Phoebe Bridgers. The song sees Brandon and Phoebe duetting as a couple who idealize their love and get married at a young age. The love seems to unravel as they age and they ultimately head in different directions in a way that is painfully universal and heightened by their soft and subtle performances. That description alone should be more than enough explanation for why you should listen to it.
In The Car Outside explores similar issues but in a much more dramatic and instrumentally involved way. This time a couple experiences the slow decline of their intimacy using the metaphor of waiting for a train to pass and starting to feel exhausted. It's another song that features some trademark Killers quirk but I've grown to find it pretty charming. In Another Life is a track that takes on the entire opioid epidemic through another trouble narrator who is wandering through his life with no direction and it's heavily implied that he's hurting those around him through his substance abuse. The song wears its tragedy on its sleeve and it captures aimlessness really well with the idea of dreaming what you could be in another life. Instrumentally there's dreamy guitars and some anthemic percussion that gives Brandon's vocals an extra boost.
Desperate Things is one of the strongest uses of lyrical narrative on the entire album using repeated phrases that change their meaning throughout in compelling and satisfying ways. The story is about a cop who falls in love with a women whose husband in abusing her and ultimately chooses to murder him. It feels fittingly domestic and realistically tragic as yet another moment of small town mutual destruction where everyone involved loses. The actual instrumental is one of the best on the entire record with dramatic swells of crashing instrumentation that perfectly aligns with the storytelling. The title track Pressure Machine is the closest the record goes to true folk from an instrumental and compositional sense but it's also the song most willing to directly critique the small world mentality of "god's country" head on. While I get the feeling that Brandon does have legitimate love for places like where he grew up the whole album is full of jagged references to the painful and often preventable things people go through. While the instrumental build on the track does feel routine for the band and the album it's hard to deny that it works. Brandon flexes his vocal range while also delivering some of the most impactful lyricism on the entire album.
So yeah, that is a lot. The bulk of the records highlights come in two excellent runs where Brandon reminisces and projects tragic small town narratives to the point where it feels like the whole point of these rural towns is to cause pain. In between these two runs there are some tracks that don't take quite as strong of a thematic point. Cody choses to focus more conceptually on the concept of many troubled kids referencing them all as "Cody". The thing that's hard to gleam from the lyrics is whether or not Brandon actually believes they are bad kids or merely misunderstood outcasts who are victims of narrowmindedness. While I think they really nail the last minute of the track with a fiery bridge and whimsical outro, I think it's one of the most meek tracks here. This is followed by Sleepwalker which is a Killers track through and through, which means it doesn't really fit in on the album. It definitely sounds more synthetic than some of the other songs here which does contrast with the naturalized lyrics. My bigger issue with the lyrics is that they don't have nearly the narrative weight of many of the other songs here, its serviceable but outclassed in pretty much every way.
One of the most subjective and through provoking moments on the album is the closing track The Getting By. It's a song that takes a mixed approach to making a conclusion about the records themes. While Brandon clearly understands the flaws in these stories across this track he expresses some optimism and even charming appeal to the small town people who are just "getting by". The song is sonically compelling and closes out the whole record with a final recorded passage of a passing train that drags you back into the albums darkness. The only issue I have with the song itself is that after hearing all of the unnecessary pain caused by the mentality of small town living, I find it hard to be optimistic. I wonder if Brandon's mentality of seeing hope through the suffering is reductive to just how toxic the environments in question are. Regardless I think its a good song and a moment that makes you really reflect on everything you heard thus far.
Pressure Machine is very good. Not only do The Killers and Jonothan Rado manage to deliver another helping of compelling instrumentals in a more stripped back capacity, but this is the most mature songwriting I've ever heard from the band. The focus on narrative and the repeated attacks on small town living reinforce the records narrative perfectly. Moment to moment this can feel like yet another album from the band but when you finish the album and look back on it Brandon Flowers and company have assembled something really special. The record can be challenging and indulgent at points but it all serves a sensation that is incredibly rewarding and a record that is greater than the sum of its parts and an even better achievement than the already solid run of successes the band has had in recent years. 8.5/10
This cover has something about it that drains you in. The composition is extremely simple and that enables the black and white photo to stand out even when it's only occupying a small space in the full piece. The text accents it and the slight dust and scratches brings the whole thing together. I'm not overly excited by this but every part of it is well executed. 8/10
