The Killers dazzle with a flash-bang on the soaring and triumphant Imploding The Mirage

Being one of the biggest bands on the planet can’t be easy, especially when your halcyon days are trapped in a perpetual cycle of indie discos and TV adverts. For The Killers, the growth from indie-darlings of the 2004 Hot Fuss era, through to the present day, almost twenty years later, is remarkable.

On Imploding The Mirage they're hitting the highway once more, driving with intent; an intent to live, to explore, and to keep those Springsteen choruses lathered in glitz and glamour with a gritty undertone. A perfect formula that may take its while to have circled back to this point but now we’ve got a packet full of cigarettes and the Nevada sun kissing our necks.

Clocking in at ten tracks, the focus here is simply keepin’ on, keepin’ on. Even the slower jams such as “Lightning Field” and the slightly reserved Fleetwood Mac channeling “Running Towards A Place” keep that same rumble-under-tyre spirit. It could be an instant explosion or an atom bomb building show, but it always comes back to that gorgeous flash-bang.

There’s no denying The Killers are a band who can write a hit, the ability to pen an entire album that feels coherent while making sure the diamonds sparkle doesn’t seem to come easy. Battle Born and Wonderful Wonderful both had the necessary components but just didn’t quite sink into that comfortable zone of being memorable. Whereas Imploding The Mirage is an album unbound by needless direction, instead it hones in on the razzle-dazzle, showy synth choruses that feel in the same world as any of their classics, but with a feeling only time can help eek out.

Escapism running through its veins, right down to the gentle “woah-oh’s” or cascading drums, Imploding The Mirage works because it doesn’t try hard but still pulls all of those components we’ve come to know and love together. Even “When The Dreams Run Dry”, a band like The Killers will light a fuse and spell-bind the world into remembering life is to be lived, and stories are there to be told.