The Killers drop spare new album about Utah town where singer lived

Everybody knows astir the train.

Feels similar it’s ever roaring done this tiny Utah town, locals say.

“You perceive it constantly,” a autochthonal notes during a recorded interview.

That bid represents galore things: the manufacture that’s the beating bosom of this place, the Jones Rubber Plant, wherever each the guys extremity up; a mode of retired here; and, for some, a mode of retired of thing else.

“Every 2 oregon 3 years the bid kills somebody…” the antheral continues connected the recording, which serves arsenic the intro to the 2nd chopped from The Killers’ caller album, “Pressure Machine,” which drops Friday. “I deliberation the bid is simply a mode to find your mode retired of this beingness if you get deed by it.”

And with that, the snippet ends, the synth chimes in, drums thunder, guitars growl and Brandon Flowers elaborates:

“A mates of kids got deed by a Union Pacific bid / Carrying expanse metallic and household appliances done the pouring rain,” helium sings. “They were readying connected getting joined aft graduation / Had a small babe miss / Trouble came and unopen it down / Things similar that ain’t expected to hap / In this quiescent town.”

This quiescent town: Nephi, Utah, colonisation 5,400, nestled successful the cardinal portion of the state, astir a 40-minute thrust southbound of Provo.

Flowers spent a half-dozen of his formative years there, from property 10-16.

“When I archetypal met Brandon, helium said helium lived successful Nephi,” Killers drummer Ronnie Vannucci recalls successful a Zoom chat, shirtless, wearing a NASA hat. “And I was like, ‘I cognize that town. There’s a Taco Time there.’ And helium goes, ‘Oh, yeah, I utilized to enactment astatine that Taco Time.’

“It mightiness person been 1 of our archetypal conversations,” helium continues. “It’s absorbing to spot however the satellite of Nephi has continued its orbit wrong our lives.”

‘Imploding’ expectations

He equates it to staring down the tube of a weapon pointed astatine him and his band.

“It was a antithetic feeling,” Vannucci begins. He’s talking astir getting the originative process going successful the rima of a pandemic.

Last summer, The Killers released their sixth album, the kaleidoscopic “Imploding the Mirage,” with overmuch of the satellite unopen down, basically. And truthful alternatively of going connected tour, they returned to the studio.

“When we were grounded backmost towards the extremity of March, our knee-jerk absorption was, ‘Oh, OK, let’s conscionable prime up the pieces and support going with the flair of this record,’” Vannucci recalls of carrying connected with the invigorated vibe of “Implosion.” “And past things got really, truly dark. There’s stay-at-home orders and determination were radical dying.

“We were benignant of realizing what this happening was,” helium continues, “and it was much of a beast than we thought. It was spinning us; it was benignant of putting america successful this mood. It was throwing america into antithetic characters, almost.”

It each begat a burning question: “How are we going to effort to marque a similar-sounding grounds erstwhile — each of a abrupt — the sky’s falling for everyone?” Vannucci wonders.

The answer? Make thing wholly antithetic instead.

“Brandon said to maine 1 day, ‘This is reminding astir being isolated successful Nephi,’” Vannucci remembers. “And past helium got to reasoning astir the municipality helium was surviving in, and decided to jot down these poems, basically, and we built the songs astir these poems oregon lyrics.

“We decided to embark connected that benignant of journey,” helium continues, “that situation to marque a grounds similar this, to marque it otherwise — due to the fact that everything was different. I deliberation we went astir it successful the astir honorable mode that we could.”

‘Pressure’ cooker

The medium opens with the sheriff kicking the doorway down.

“They got maine for possession of them hillbilly heroin,” Flowers sings connected “West Hills,” giving dependable to a hard-luck quality successful a haunting elegy flecked with fiddle and cello that sets a portentous code for the 10 songs that follow.

Addiction casts a agelong shadiness implicit “Pressure Machine.”

“There’s a batch of opiods going around,” a Nephi section says successful a taped snippet that prefaces the arsenic searching and stirring “In Another Life.” “It makes you consciousness beauteous damn good. After a fewer hours, you’ve got to instrumentality more. And past aft awhile you’re taking a ton and you don’t consciousness great.”

Rueful laugh.

“Everyone’s conscionable trying to flight somethin,’” helium explains.

“Pressure Machine” explores this displacement successful the American ideal, wherever tiny towns were erstwhile seen arsenic tight-knit harmless havens from large metropolis ills, but are present often wracked by the benignant of cause maltreatment that tin devour an full community.

There’s a duality inherent tiny municipality living: immoderate find comfortableness successful a mounting wherever everyone knows everyone else; others find it suffocating, limiting, catalyzing a natural-born restlessness.

“Pressure Machine” is filled with characters rife with a consciousness of longing, of wanting thing more, of feeling mired successful these “quicksand streets” oregon chafing against a “barbed ligament municipality of barbed ligament dreams.”

There are two-timing husbands, murderous cops and discontented mill workers successful these hills, galore of them yearning for a past arsenic a mode of steeling themselves against a grim future.

Sonically, these songs mostly eschew the bombast of past Killers albums, favoring an earthier, Americana bent that The Killers person touched connected previously, but excavation into much profoundly present with mandolin, pedal alloy and harmonica flourishes.

Of course, determination are inactive fist-in-the-air moments to beryllium had — “In the Car Outside” roars similar an motor being revved — particularly with guitarist Dave Keuning returning to the fold aft skipping the “Imploding the Mirage” sessions, earning a mates penning credits and laying down a peculiarly fiery solo connected “Cody.”

For a set with an acknowledged fondness for Bruce Springsteen — and it’s mutual, hence Springsteen’s caller collaboration with The Killers connected a mentation of their “Day & Age” azygous “Dustland Fairytale” — “Pressure Machine” mines a vein akin to Springsteen’s lo-fi masterpiece “Nebraska,” a stripped-down medium of first-person narratives documenting lives of desperation, of blue-collar frustration.

As with Nephi itself, though, there’s quality amid the bleakness here, with Flowers chronicling young love’s maturation connected “Runaway Horses,” a blood-warming acoustic duet with Phoebe Bridgers, portion capturing the magic of changing seasons connected “Sleepwalker.”

“Don’t you miss the mode / Wildflowers overgarment the occidental hills?” helium sings connected the latter.

It’s a rhetorical question, answered successful song.

About each those interrogation snippets…

The thought came to them erstwhile they were mixing the record.

Credit co-producer Shawn Everett. “We were each commenting connected however this is conscionable similar a documentary, it’s a philharmonic mentation of a documentary,” Vannucci says of “Pressure Machine.” “It was astir journalistic, telling stories — and they were existent stories — and we’re fitting euphony astir them.

“Sean came successful the adjacent morning,” helium continues, “and goes, ‘I was conscionable listening to NPR, ‘This American Life,’ and idiosyncratic enactment a portion recorder successful a diner and conscionable fto it roll, and we got to perceive each these absorbing conversations. You guys should spell retired to Nephi, you should bring a portion recorder and grounds radical and interrogation them. I was like, ‘Yeah, that would beryllium awesome.’”

Of course, The Killers being 1 of the biggest stone bands successful the world, it wouldn’t precisely enactment if they showed up and started chatting up the locals themselves. So they hired a nonrecreational to bash it.

“One day, they conscionable went out, interviewed radical astir the town, and we sifted done hours of audio to find these snippets to get to the stories,” Vannucci says. “It wasn’t hard. There was truthful overmuch golden successful the audio captured from that 1 time successful Nephi. You truly get a consciousness of the municipality done these stories and the accents, the diction and the mode radical enunciate, even. It helps thread the grounds together.”

It besides different furniture of realism to the album.

To perceive Vannucci archer it, “Pressure Machine” isn’t conscionable astir small-town life. It’s astir life, period.

“Even though this is astir a tiny municipality successful Utah, it truly tin beryllium applied astir your town, it tin beryllium astir wherever you unrecorded oregon your situation,” helium says. “I deliberation much what it’s showcasing is that, tiny municipality oregon large city, you inactive person your ups and downs.”

Like “Nebraska,” “Pressure Machine” ends with a measurement of hard-bitten hope.

“So enactment different time in, son,” Flowers sings connected “The Getting By,” delivering the album’s last line. “And clasp connected ‘til the getting’s good.”

Then comes the dependable of that train.

Contact Jason Bracelin astatine jbracelin@reviewjournal.com oregon 702-383-0476. Follow @JasonBracelin connected Twitter and @jbracelin76 connected Instagram