The narrator at the beginning of ‘Runaway Horses’ recounts the sorrow of a girl on the death of her horse. ‘In Another Life’ hypothesises that it may be oneself that they are afraid of, with Flowers asking ‘when will I make it home tonight?’ and answering ‘when that old jukebox in the corner stops playing country songs/Stories that sound like mine.’ ‘Sleepwalker’ steps inside the human condition, and reassures that ‘everyone is afraid of something’. One cannot help but make comparisons to the dragging days of the pandemic. It also laments the repetitive nature of life – ’round and round it goes’. The faith motif continues into ‘Cody’, which speaks of “waiting for a miracle”. The spoken-word narrator at the beginning hypothesises that the train is a way to ‘find a way out of this life… if you get hit by it.’ The people of this town, it is becoming clear, live in hope of a power beyond themselves. This is perhaps most apparent in ‘Quiet Town’, where affection for the ‘good people’ who live there and feel safe enough not to bolt their doors at night is juxtaposed against stories of a train famous for causing fatalities. The sense of place here is perhaps the strongest of their seven albums His expressions of affection for the place appear forced, while his criticisms are flashes of passionate truth. This perhaps reflects the opinion of singer Brandon Flowers himself, who appears in these eight songs to embody a preacher with a gun to his head. The subjects are conflicted in their opinions of small-town life, one appearing contented and the other hostile. ‘West Hills’ begins – as do its seven disciple tracks – with spoken-word narration, in the style of an interview. A globally familiar feeling.Įight of the eleven songs follow a standard set by the first track on the album, one of raw, sombre instrumentation and yearning vocals. The album evokes a feeling of entrapment the amplified frustrations of a world reduced to a few faces and locations. A year in which the world has been fundamentally changed. It is the unique timeliness of the setting that sets it apart – a small, regressive town worlds away from the glorious, expansive ‘Lightning Fields’ of Imploding the Mirage, released only a year ago. In fact, the sense of place here is perhaps the strongest of their seven albums. This is no exception to their latest album either: the 11-song Pressure Machine. The Killers’ strength has always been in their sense of place.
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