Customer Reviews

Sam's Town

5 star:		(103)
4 star:		(43)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I'd been waiting for the follow up to Hot Fuss and was worried that it would prove the 'difficult second album' and disappoint me. Thankfully I was wrong and I think this is a better album than the first. The band sound confident in their sound and Brandon's voice is as charismatic and unique as ever. Bones and Can You read my mind stand out as the best tracks to me (after 2 days listening!) but there is not really a weak track on the album. Highly recommended

Not sure what Nigel Wilson's on about, but this HAS to have 5 stars. Not quite sure about the influences that the Amazon writers level at the guys either. The Killers are CLEARLY influenced by The Cure more so than any other band that they are mentioned in the same breath as, although I have to agree that the U2 comparison with Sam's Town sits well.

OK, the album. Opens with Sam's Town ,which should be familiar to fans on Hot Fuss, great guitar and vocal melodies. Enterude leads really well into When You Were Young, a classic Killers song that could easily have been included on Hot Fuss without the apparent detachment from the last album. From here we move through Bling and into For Reasons Unknown, which I think is form where the simliarities with U2 stem.

The other tracks cross from one to the other with an ease that makes the listening experience PASSIONATE. No highlights. Every track is fantastic. Really fantastic. Love it or Love it, there's no choice.

When I put this CD on for the first time, I was definitely disappointed. The first single, When You Were Young, is a song I adored and can't get enough of. The rest of the album, however, seemed a little dull and slightly unimaginative. That was two days ago. Since then, I've listened to it several times and have had to come to the conclusion that I was extremely wrong.

When You Were Young still takes the place as "favourite song off the album" but, however, the rest of the CD is certainly growing on me. The Enter- and exitludes are perhaps a little unimaginative in their lyrics but the tunes are well, pretty beautiful, and the rest of the tracks have an edge to them. Sam's Town in particular has become a favourite, with its wonderful ending chorus, and For Reasons Unknown is great as well. As for the other tracks, give me some time and a few more listens, and I'm sure I'll come to love them as much as those mentioned.

Don't be put off if, the first time you listen to this CD you think that its not much good. Give it a chance and you're sure to start to adore it. In fact, even as I'm writing this review I've decided that Bling (Confessions of a King) is another fabulous song. And I just remembered that I didn't like When You Were Young the first time I heard it either.

It's a slow starter, but its another fantastic offering from the Killers and is definitely worth your money.

This is a 5 star album people.
I can listen to this album form start to finish, that is very rare for me !
No mainstream songs, far from It. Just excellent songs In anyones books.

If your thinking about buying It, don't. Just buy It ^^

I have to admit, after the the first couple of plays of this much anticipated album I was disappointed - it didn't seem to have the instantly memorable melodies of Hot Fuss and seemed darker and less accessible.

However, something changed after the 4th or 5th play through - the melodies are there, and are great - they just take more time to recognise. Played loud in the car, it really comes into its own - and the Razorlight album which follows it on my cd multiplayer sounds like a boy band in comparison!

I have to say that I now think this is just as good, if not better than Hot Fuss. It's got two dodgy tracks, but out of 13 that's ok and the rest of the album makes up for it.

This is a fantastic album - just give it time!

OK, so truth be told it took me a long time to come round to Hot Fuss - the New Wave look and heavy synth-pop sound was a little hard to swallow for someone who hated it all the first time around. Still, Mr. Brightside was clearly an amazing single and I found myself listening to the rest of the album without really meaning to. It ended up being one of those go-to albums, that you automatically put on when you can't think what to listen to. A great album, no doubt, even if it took me a while to realise it.

No such problems here. I loved Sam's Town from the first minute I pressed play on my CD player, and even though I've listened to pretty much nothing else for the last week or so, all I'm finding are new things to enjoy. Now, a word of caution at this point - The Killers are going to take a lot of abuse for this one from some critics, and probably some of their own fans (check the Rolling Stone review for a predictable example of the former) because the one thing Sam's Town is not, is Hot Fuss Vol. II.

The 80s influenced melodrama-pop is pretty much entirely absent, except for a in few bars of Bling and Read My Mind - what they have done instead is embrace the American musical heritage of Springsteen and Neil Young (and even, in a couple of places, the kings of the desert, QOTSA), amped up their choruses and unleashed an album full of soaring anthems, about highways and hurricanes, cocaine and casinos and girls with pretty names - and for me, it's wonderful. And I'm sure I won't be the only one who thinks so. I defy anyone to listen to Bling (even though it has a genuinely awful title), Bones or the jaw-dropping This River Is Wild without feeling your heart surge against your chest like it did the first time you heard Born To Run...

See, this is what I don't really get about the criticism that has already come their way, and will I'm sure intensify once the album starts to sell the millions of copies it inevitably will - this is an American band, who have never made any secret of their desire to reach the U2/Coldplay level, recording an album of absolutely American, joyously crowd-pleasing music. Honestly, someone is going to have to explain to me what is wrong with that...

This is a great new album from The Killers, but as many have said it is a big leap from Hot Fuss, with more meaningful lyrics than before. Personaly i think that this is better than Hot Fuss, as the songs vary incredibly within the album and of course the killers are using different influences in this album, which i think suits there talent better.

If you don't buy the album but want to download a few songs, i would recommend: when you were young, for reasons unknown and bones.

If you liked the Killers style in Hot Fuss you may find this album a surprise, but after a few run throughs, you should love it.

The haters are wrong, trust me. You may notice there is a familiar theme in their complaints. They state the lack of instantly 'big songs' or catchy tunes in Sams town.
However, with Sams town, the songs certainly contain cracking melodies with a more varied and balanced content than Hot Fuss, and to be perfectly honest, if any album sounds 'samey' its Hot Fuss.
Like with most great songs of any ilk, they contain a depth and longevity, that require repeated visits to dip below an intial misunderstanding, to eventually appreciate the true gems, and in Sam's Town, there are plenty.
You can guarantee that the same people who get there instant fix of 'catchy tunes' in day & age that they asked for, will dislike it for another reason. And lets face it, the reason will be because it isnt Hot Fuss.
It seems to me the people who like Hot Fuss and hate Sam's Town are stuck in their own little world of expecting all artists to produce albums to have the same sounding 'anthem-only' tracks. Or maybe they just live in the other end of the 'pop' scale and anything that slightly encroaches in that direction is regarded as some type of musical sin.

Hot fuss, Sams town and Day & Age are all great albums, just different. Which is why they are such a great band. Can you imagine if every Killers album sounded exactly like Hot fuss? That would be dull, unoriginal and show little enterprise. I daresay they would find it equally unmotivating to record too.
Each album has a distinctively different approach, but with the same Killers sound. I certainly hope their next album sounds equally unsimilar to their previous great efforts (if that makes sense!).

As soon as you haters out there stop obsessing over Hot Fuss and accept their next albums are not supposed to be Hot Fuss part II and part III, you may actually start to enjoy them.

I have been eargerly anticipating the return of The Killers, and their new album Sam's Town. The album was brilliant, every track was good, all killer no filler, (pardon the pun). The tracks that stood out for me were When We Were Young, Sam's Town and Read My Mind.

Michael Starr

Well as people have already stated, it's certainly not Hot Fuss. It never was going to be. It was always going to be impossible to recreate the same 'amazingness' of the first 6-7 tracks on that album, they were quite literally phenomenal.

Since 2004, music has changed, and quite obviously so have the killers. They've become more serious, and good on them to! They've changed their style a tad and in my opinion it's great that they can do this and still deliver an album of such quality... this is Sam's Town.

The great thing about Hot Fuss was that from the beginning, track after track was fantastic... not one poor song, until maybe the latter stages of the album when it eased up a little. This is where Sam's Town is different for me. I can't pick one bad song on of this CD. From tracks 1-14 (including bonus tracks aswell) I seen to be rocking to them all. Obviously there's going to be peoples favourite tracks and maybe i'm a tad biased being a complete Killers obsessive but i can't fault any of the tracks.

If i could give this album 6/5 stars i would, i really do believe it's that good.