Send "Brandon Flowers " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Sputnikmusic |
 Most things are obvious in retrospect. Looking back, it is easy to determine whether or not you should have had that last drink, dated that girl/guy, or drafted a running back instead of a quarterback as your fantasy football first pick. At a specific point in time however, some things are not so easy to identify. For instance; when Las Vegas quartet The Killers broke on to the scene in 2004 with their catchy brand of new-wave pop, lead vocalist Brandon Flowers appeared to be the least likely front-man to ever go solo. Raised a Mormon, the then 23 year old singer practically had to be coaxed into taking on the lead role for the band, his inability to smile and genuinely awkward demeanor struggling to answer even the simplest of questions put to him. Those that were close to him knew of the charisma that lay underneath however, and as time passed, eccentricity turned to ambition… Dare we ever forget Flower’s infamous “one of the best albums in the past twenty years” quote in reference to his band’s second album ‘Sam’s Town’. So here we are six years later with the release of a Brandon Flowers solo album. In retrospect, its existence was an odds-on inevitability that could have bankrupted a Vegas bookie. Yet, reports suggest that ‘Flamingo’ did not come about as an alternative outlet for the vocalist, rather a testament to his workaholic nature. Listening to the album, those reports ring true since ‘Flamingo’ does not depart too significantly from The Killers discography, grabbing bits and pieces from each of their three studio albums. Laying the conceptual foundation of the LP (Flamingo refers to the name of a Las Vegas casino & road), the clichéd and wordy lyrics of theatrically satisfying opener ‘Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas’ could have opened ‘Sam’s Town’, the dated – but catchy – new-wave pop of ‘Was It Something I Said?’ would have fit perfectly on ‘Hot Fuss’, while the Lou Reed inspired sub 3 minute closer ‘Swallow It’ is weird enough to have felt at home on the polarizing ‘Day & Age’....full text |
| Musicradar |
| REVIEW: You've got to hand it to Killers frontman Brandon Flowers: He's always done things his own way. Growing up in Las Vegas (the adopted home to both Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley), when his friends were buying records by Tool and Nirvana, he held true to the English bands he loved, groups like New Order, The Smiths, Pet Shop Boys and Depeche Mode. Later, as he rose to prominence with The Killers, he boldly proclaimed his lifelong membership in The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, making him, besides The Osmonds, one of the few Mormon rockers to go public. (Quibble with the definition of The Osmonds as "rockers" all you want - Crazy Horses is heavy to the max.) Beyond that, he's one of a handful of men who has recently sported a moustache unironically and gotten away with it. Call him a dandy, call him a poser, call him a peacock (he's all of those things and would probably welcome each tag enthusiastically), the fact remains that, with his irresistible mix of dancey synth-pop fused with dashes of heartland rock, he and the rest of The Killers (guitarist Dave Keuning, bassist Mark Stoermer and drummer Ronnie Vannucci) have carved out a unique niche in the music world. Flamingo is Flowers' first solo album, and it's a doozy of a debut. Strangely, it wasn't intended as such: The singer-bassist-keyboardist had been writing material for what he assumed would be a new Killers record when the band suddenly announced they were taking a year-long hiatus. Rather than bask in success in his desert digs, Flowers enlisted producers Stuart Price (who helmed the band's 2008 smash Day & Age), Pearl Jam and Springsteen knob-turner Brendan O'Brien, along with U2 sonic craftsman Daniel Lanois (not to mention guest musicians such as Rilo Kiley singer Jenny Lewis, as well as drummer Vannucci) to create a dizzying collection of musically daring songs that deal directly with - to bum a phrase from Depeche Mode - faith and devotion....full text |
| Bbc |
| For many, the solo album means experimentation, indulging in music that fellow band members would very probably chuck their instruments at. But not for Brandon Flowers. When he and the other Killers decided to take a year off, the group’s flamboyant frontman had already started writing their fourth album proper and, instead of pushing it to the back of a drawer while he unleashed his inner jazzman or rapper (god forbid), he carried on writing, with only himself to please. Then he enlisted Stuart Price, who worked on The Killers’ last record, 2008’s Day & Age, to co-produce; invited their drummer Ronnie Vannucci to play on a couple of tracks; and finally, named the album, like the Springsteen-saluting Sam’s Town, after a place in the band’s native Las Vegas. (Disappointingly, the title isn’t a stunningly self-aware allusion to a strutting, preposterously plumed creature. Shame.) So is this just a Killers CD to be filed closer to the start of the shelf? Well, opener Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas, with its flag-waving, marching-band pomp, and first single Crossfire, which begs for a stadium and thousands of hands in the air, are the sort of rousing anthems that filled Sam’s Town and littered Day & Age. Magdalena and Was It Something I Said?, with their tinny synths and hook-heavy 80s pop sensibility, could almost have slid in on a slick of Hot Fuss lip-gloss. And then, like those ill-advised adventures into sax (what are you, Matt Bianco?), on Day & Age, there are songs which should have been muzzled, tied up and shackled to the recording studio walls: a sleep-inducing foray into gospel called On the Floor and the I’ve-been-listening-to-Transformer-on-loop Swallow It....full text |
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