The Killers’ Imploding the Mirage

Last August the Killers released their sixth album, Imploding the Mirage, and since they couldn’t tour, they created a seventh that will be released in a couple weeks. There is a long, detailed essay on the Killers’ music with quotes and links that has been going through my head that will never be properly written, so I am going to dash off some thoughts with the time that I have.

I jumped on the Killers bandwagon in 2009 in the year after their third album Day & Age came out. By then they had progressed, from 2004’s sex-drenched and sometimes lurid Hot Fuss, to somewhat inarticulate yearning for higher things. More “Are we human, or are we dancer?” Less “It’s killing me and taking control.” I embraced the Killers as the Nevadans they showed themselves to be, very identifiable as successors to those I lived among as a youth twenty years before. That included their jack Mormon singer, who I called our Jack Dempsey for the 21st Century.

Then a funny thing happened. The singer matured, straightened up, and took his wife to the temple. Pretty much the opposite of the common celebrity Mormon trajectory. In the detailed essay I will never write I would step you through that and give my analysis of why he was thus blessed. (My short answer: two good women.) The first hint of religion in Brandon Flowers’ singing surfaced in his solo album Flamingo (2010). The song “Magdalena” explored repentance and redemption through a Catholic pilgrimage. It seemed that he needed to borrow someone else’s religion and its imagery to say something on the topic. Using his own may have seemed too Mormon-y, or maybe he did not know how to tap into that yet. Skipping to the end, Flowers has now figured out how to write songs based on his own religion.

There is a three song set on the Killers’ fourth album Battle Born (2012) that I recognized as a statement about having become a fully participating Latter-day Saint while still the face of a rock band. In Flowers’ second solo album, The Desired Effect (2015), the main emotion I heard was fear. Fear of not living up to his responsibilities, responsibilities that a decade earlier he gave no thought and hadn’t shouldered. The fear of a man in his 30s. There is a hilarious little bit on that album’s opening track, were the singer compares himself to the beneficiaries of Jesus’ miracles, and then in an aside rattles off a couple of those miracles, much as those in a Sunday School class might. “Like Lazarus. Or the mother of Peter’s wife.” The places a man hangs out rub off on him.

Brandon Flowers has said that Imploding the Mirage started with the album artwork. Depicted on that cover is more or less the same Personage that Michelangelo depicted imbuing Adam’s body with life. And that Personage has a Mate. The last album Wonderful, Wonderful was about a couple dealing with hardship. This one is about that couple overcoming, triumphing, and taking a victory lap. If there is one stylistic weakness, it would be that half the tracks are the same song over and over from different angles, but I like that song a lot. It’s a rather aspirational song; you, too, want to be the one singing it in first person.

Three months ago I highlighted “Fire and Bone.” Tuesday morning (link) I will post discussion of my favorite track. If you have listened to the album and you know me, you can probably guess which track that is. (Big hint.) To close out today I will just write out some of Imploding the Mirage’s lyrics that stick with me. Imploding the Mirage doesn’t just have touches of yearning for the divine here and there. It is permeated with it. It is rather heartening and hopeful for all of us to think that “she kicked and screamed as I held her close” could lead to this.

“My Own Soul’s Warning”
If you could see though the banner of the sun
Into eternity’s eyes like a vision reaching down to you
Would you turn away?
What if it knew you by your name?
What kind of words would cut through
The clutter of the whirlwind of these days?

“Dying Breed”
There’s gonna be opposition
Ain’t no way around it
But if you’re looking for strong and steady
Well baby, you found it

“Running Towards a Place”
And if we’re running towards a place
Where we’ll walk as one
Will the hardness of this life
Be overcome?

“My God”
Wipe the dust from my eye
Wash my feet with your tears
My God, my God
From your mouth to my heart

“When the Dreams Run Dry”
Reach for the summit
Of an ancient design
On the verge of eternal
On the heels of divine

We’ll just follow the moon, to the stars,
To the sun, to the ground,
And around, and around
And around

“Imploding the Mirage”
I had to do it, I had no other choice
You’ve got to listen to the inside voice
A bullet train will get you there fast
But it won’t guarantee a long last
Sometimes it takes a little courage and doubt
To push your boundaries out
Beyond your imagining