The Killers not afraid to mix romance, rock ‘n’ roll bombast

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The wind always seems to be blowing past Brandon Flowers’ face.

At least in song, where The Killers frontman frequently gives voice to lovers and other true believers in flight, headed somewhere, anywhere.

And fast.

“I drove through the desert last night,” Flowers sang during “The Way It Was” early on in the band’s sold-out show at the Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas on Friday. “I carried the weight of our last fight.”

That burden is lessened, at least in part, by the solace of the open road, the allure of which Flowers sentimentalizes in song after song, transfixed by the highway as if it were a hypnotist’s swinging pocket watch.

This thematic motif says much about The Killers.

The main appeal of hopping in a car and heading for the horizon is the endless possibility it implies.

It’s a starry-eyed, idealized notion, totally impractical and all the more thrilling because of it.

This same sense of go-for-broke abandon, of unlimited prospects, however chimerical, is the enlarged heart that pumps the blood through this band’s veins.

The Killers are true rock ‘n’ roll romantics, believing so much in the power of song – especially their own – that it may come off as corny to some, but they really want to be your favorite band, they want you to sing their songs into your hairbrush in front of your bedroom mirror.

They want it so bad, in fact, that they can seem too eager to soundtrack every big moment in life with a song.

They wrestle with grandeur, and sometimes grandeur pins them to the mat.

But this is also what makes The Killers worth paying attention to in the first place.

There is no cynicism in this bunch, no ironic detachment to distance themselves from their lofty aspirations, their songs more silver-lined than not.

They aim to inspire and reassure, and they do so unabashedly.

“Come on, show me where it hurts, maybe I can heal it,” Flowers sings on “Matter of Time,” off the band’s latest record, “Battle Born,” and there’s little doubt he believes he can do just that.

“Battle Born” feels a little overstuffed in places, but the album’s songs seem much more suited for the stage, in the context of a big rock show, where outsize expressiveness can be an asset.

Here, the climactic, uninhibited aplomb of new songs such as “Miss Atomic Bomb” and “Runaways” fully blossomed, as did the rootsy swing of “From Here On Out,” an Eagles-esque number with multipart harmonies and slide guitar flourishes.

Even the ballads were bombastic, with Flowers singing so hard on “Here With Me” that veins bulged in his neck, while “Dustland Fairy Tale” began as a plaintive torch song before further combusting into a dramatic rocker with lots of fists pumping in the crowd.

Flowers, smiling wide, punched the air to the beat, wielded his mic stand like a broad sword and sang with preacherlike zeal, his pulpit being a keyboard with the facade of an illuminated lightning bolt.

His energy was matched by a rhythm section that could anchor a metal band, such was the hard jostle conjured by bassist Mark Stoermer and drummer Ronnie Vannucci, with the latter headbanging behind his kit, backed by a massive Blue Oyster Cult-worthy gong.

Upon this thick bedrock of bottom end ricocheted Dave Keuning’s arcing, resonant guitar lines, which brightened the songs like Fourth of July fireworks.

The Killers have been touring, on and off, since the summer, and their steady gigging was evident in the well-honed and spirited thrush of songs such as “Read My Mind,” “For Reasons Unknown” and “Jenny Was a Friend of Mine.”

With so much roadwork behind them, the band seemed happy to be home.

Flowers reflected on the past between tunes, recalling the pressures of following up their smash debut, “Hot Fuss,” at Studio 58 not too far from the venue, and clothes shopping at Buffalo Exchange for The Killers’ first show, where a girl approached him and gave him her phone number.

She’d later become his wife.

“If someone gives you their phone number tonight, give them a call,” Flowers advised before playing a portion of the wistful ballad “Heart of a Girl,” ever the romanticist.

“Give my regards to soul and romance,” he sang earlier in the show during “Human,” underscoring this point. “They always did the best they could.”

He’d spend the rest of the night attempting to do them one better.

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin
@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.