Four years after the last album "Day & Age" saw them dip their toe into dancier waters, The Killers make their grand return with a artistic video for the Killersiest comeback single, "Runaways," the lead single from the Las Vegas rock band's upcoming fourth studio album, "Battle Born," which is their first in four years and due to be released on September 18.Influenced by the best material from Bruce Springsteen, "Runaways," is an 80s-rock fever dream that's crazily big, even by their grandiose standards: a Vesuvian gusher of Springsteen mythos, Toto-Journey power hooks and lead singer Brandon Flowers' unmistakable commitment to unmistakable commitment." When you put a thunderbolt in your new album logo, we expect a first single as mighty as the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. In the Killers' new song, the band comes pretty close, and reminds us how much we've missed them.
"Runaways" starts off gently with some bare-bones piano chords, an acoustic guitar and not a whole lot else, but it gains momentum faster than you can remember the lyrics to "Mr. Brightside." Flowers is an excellent voice in telling the story of a teenage love that led to a shotgun wedding and is threatening to fall apart years later. Four minutes later, you've got a galloping desert rocker good enough to roll with the best of the Vegas quartet's catalog. "Runaways" continues the Killers' fascination, and had that very powerful ability to open the record.
Dark and dreamy, the Warren Fu-directed video is a combo of the abstract and performance video which mostly shows Flowers and his bandmates hit the desert and perform in a pitch black room on top of red futuristic platforms. As Flowers said, the clip "definitely conjures up some spirits," that leave vapor trails of fist-pumping, tear-streaming rock sonically akin to Asia's "Heat of the Moment." The band opts for brilliant pops of color with a lot of black background as Flowers recounts his seemingly doomed romance. It also looks like the performance screen for "Rock Band," without the actual game. Everybody looks good, refreshed.
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