Words: Gareth O'Malley

We get the feeling that Brandon Flowers should have called his debut solo album 'Songs of Faith and Devotion', because that is exactly what the record contains. If only Depeche Mode hadn't gotten there first. Granted, their effort's far superior to this, but that's not to knock 'Flamingo' in the slightest. SoFaD remains Depeche Mode's career best after all.

This isn't Flowers' best effort to date by any stretch of the imagination (that accolade goes to 'Sam's Town' without any doubt), but, considering what it could have become after the disastrous 'Day & Age', it really isn't bad. In fact, we'd go so far as to call it the natural successor to The Killers' high water mark, released way back in 2006.

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If 'Flamingo' must be compared to 'Sam's Town' at all, it is on the basis of consistency. 'Hot Fuss' dipped considerably after 'All These Things That I've Done' picking up with 'Believe Me Natalie' for a strong finish; and don't even get us started on 'Day & Age'. There are no massive mis-steps taken over the course of these ten tracks. Nothing here quite hits the heights of 'This River Is Wild' or 'When You Were Young', but that's only a minor quibble.

Grandiose opener 'Welcome To Fabulous Las Vegas' sets the tone quite well, its elaborate arrangement and uplifting melody getting things off to a great start. This is followed by 'Only the Young'; the song has been confirmed as the second single to be lifted from 'Flamingo', but we see it as a strange choice.

It's quite subdued and fails to leave much of an impression, meaning we wouldn't have picked it as a single at all. A song like 'Jilted Lovers and Broken Hearts', which is basically classic Killers and surely must have been one of the songs the band had been working on pre-hiatus, or (yes) the early Depeche Mode-esque 'Was It Something I Said?' would have worked much better to keep some momentum going in the singles department.

The album mainly deals with the topic of religion. This is something that Flowers (a Mormon) briefly touched on in his earlier work, but never so much as on 'Flamingo'; the record is strewn with references to the Bible and religious lifestyle ('Magdalena' and the mention of 'the conventions of old-fashioned love' on 'Hard Enough', a duet with Jenny Lewis being but two). There are nods to relationships elsewhere, and even the story of a young man leaving home crops up on the brooding six-minute centrepiece 'Playing With Fire'.

Lead single 'Crossfire', four minutes of triumphant, piano-driven pop, slots in very well indeed next to the gospel-tinged penultimate track 'On the Floor', the album's ace in the pack. Its slow tempo provides the perfect platform for Flowers' lyrics, which see him begging for forgiveness from his god in a rare moment of vulnerability.

'Swallow It' closes the album in an awkward fashion. The song itself is quite good, but its abrupt ending, added to the fact that it doesn't at all 'feel' like it should occupy that important position in the tracklisting, lets it down slightly in album context. Pacing problems are few and far between on this record, but this is the most glaringly obvious one.

Nothing on 'Flamingo' stands out, in the sense that there's no song here significantly better than the others. Conversely, nor is there a song that's significantly worse and sticking out like a sore thumb. We could use a little more of the latter on The Killers' next record, assuming there is one. This isn't quite the real return to form we were hoping for, but it'll certainly do for now.

7.5

Audiovisuals: Crossfire