Way too much

The Killer's sophomore album - traditionally difficult for many artists - was released back in 2006 on the back of much (deserved) hype thanks to their debut's addictive rhythms, vocal hooks and unashamed indie pop-rock tunes. While the follow up clearly re-uses many of the same devices, it fails to do so with the same devastating effect - no song comes close to the best tracks on Hot Fuss, although the whole does feel somewhat more consistent.

The trouble with this release then... while the album clearly still sounds like The Killers, it also sounds like someone let them loose in a massive studio and gave them free reign to put as many instruments and layers onto each track as they wanted; no-one seems to have done the sensible thing and asked them to strip things down a bit. Debut single "When We Were Young" is as close as the band come to hitting the simple yet euphoric pop highs of previous singles, "Somebody Told Me" and "Mr Brightside", but the slow tempo and dated synth leads it to shoot and miss. Badly.

However, despite its glaring faults, the album does just about hang together as a whole piece, and makes for a reasonable occasional listen. Here's to a return to form for album 3...

6/10