Battle Born rules and I really don't get all the hate for it. It is another one that is top heavy for me--I never really got into tracks 8-10, 11 doesn't do much for me either--but I really really love a lot of tracks on that album. Flesh and Bone, Miss Atomic Bomb, Runaways, Battle Born are some of my favorite Killers songs. I have to be in a certain mood for many of the songs on Pressure Machine....but I'm still very pissed off Quiet Town didn't become a huge song for them. It's so fucking good and no one I know knows it besides my wife. West Hills is a hell of a way to start an album too.
See, the only one I don’t love off Battle Born is “Deadlines & Commitments.” “The Rising Tide,” “From Here on Out,” and “Be Still” are all some of my favorites.
Okay, calling it a dud was harsh, it's just the only album of theirs that I can't see the argument for it being their best. I still like WW and listen to it a fair amount, I just don't think it is up there with the best of their material. The only songs on it that I would say are as strong as the best of their stuff would be "Rut" & "Some Kind of Love". I do really like "Life To Come" & "Out of My Mind" a lot, and the title track and "The Calling" are both pretty cool too. The closer is absolutely a dud though. That is not a good song and is such a lackluster way to close out an album.
Their batting average for closers is actually just not very good in general. "Everything Will Be Alright," pretty handily my least favorite song on Hot Fuss. I like it more than I did back then, but it goes on forever and is not particularly inspired. "Why Do I Keep Counting" absolutely rules, but the closer on "Sam's Town" is technically "Exitlude," and I've never been convinced that album needs that particular framing device. "Goodnight Travel Well" is kind of cool, but also a bizarre closer to that particular album. I once saw it compared to "Love Is Blindness" from Achtung Baby, but Day & Age is such a zippy, all-over-the-place mixed bag that I'm not sure it earns such a dark-night-of-the-soul finale. Weird ending. "Battle Born" owns. No notes. "Have All the Songs Been Written," I think I like it better than most people (some very post-2000 U2 energy here), but it never quite finds a compelling melody. (I still like this song better than the title track, but that's about it.) "Imploding the Mirage" is fine. I always want a bigger, more bombastic closing track on that record. It needs something that can hang with "My Own Soul's Warning" on the other end. "The Getting By" is perfect and ties the themes of that album together so, so well. Even if you get into Flowers' solo stuff, your closers are "Swallow It" (what the fuck is that song?) and "The Way It's Always Been" (very good song that I nevertheless think is inferior as a closer to the title track, which Brandon left on the cutting room floor). Bottom line of this thesis, Brandon Flowers is not very good at picking closing tracks.
"Goodnight, Travel Well" is their best closer. As Craig points out though, closers aren't really their strong suit.
I don't like Battle Born at all unfortunately, add me to the camp that considers Pressure their best though
The choice to not actually put "The Desired Effect" the song on The Desired Effect the album is absolutely mind-boggling to me. Cannot wrap my head around that one.
Battle Born rules. WW is their only dud. I don't like most of Day & Age but A Dustland Fairytale is my favorite song ever some days so it gets a pass