Album review: The Killers, Battleborn

THIS is the most ultra modern album to date from the Las Vegas gang. “Don’t want your picture on my cellphone,” croons Brandon Flowers on Here With Me, to emphasise his credentials as a modern-day lover boy, while the 
band flirt dangerously with becoming 21st-century 
poodle rock, embracing the pomp with scant regard for the circumstance.

The Killers

Battleborn

Mercury, £12.99

Star rating: * * * *

A Matter Of Time surges along on a rolling guitar riff, with keyboards tinkling at the top end, and laddish choruses cut free from a sporting support.

It is compelling stuff, as is Runaways, which waxes nostalgic with a flavour of cheesy Meatloaf. The Rising Tide, meanwhile, is Born To Run reimagined as a skipping song, complete with a slightly unhinged guitar solo. Less frivolous is Miss Atomic Bomb, which combines beauty pageant and holocaust in one mushroom cloud of a song. Heart Of A Girl pays unlikely lip service to the Velvet Underground, gargling Sweet Jane and spitting it out as something new and fresh.

From the opening electro plinky plonk of Flesh And Bone, the band are straining every sinew to sound relevant, and against all the odds it comes off.

There is much pleasure to be derived from this record, which is ultimately like The Darkness with better tunes and trousers.

• Download this: Miss Atomic Bomb, A Matter Of Time