Review: The Killers Are Cockier Than Ever on First Studio LP in Five Years

The title of the Killers’ first LP in five years is sly, with its echo of the “wunnerful, wunnerful” signature of iconic “champagne music” accordionist Lawrence Welk, another shameless crowd-pleaser critics loved to shade. But what do we know? The Killers have made a huge career as bombastic rock magpies working the border between flamboyant earnestness and full-on camp, strategically declining full residency in either locale. What’s great about Wonderful Wonderful, though, is that they seem in on the joke, doubling down on their hugeness fetish while wink-winking their way to the bank.

As
always, they bite from the best. The goofily self-aggrandizing “The Man”
rides Kool and the Gang’s “Spirit of the Boogie” groove while
frontman Brandon Flowers declares himself a “household name.” “Out
of My Mind” is an Eighties meta-hit that never was, with Flowers pleading,
“Take the needle off the record, I can’t stand another chorus!” while
name-dropping Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney (“a heavy name to drop,”
he stage-whispers). The anti-Trump gestures in “Run for Cover” are
welcome, but the less-arch bits grate, perhaps knowingly. The U2-Springsteen-New
Order triangulation “Life to Come” is exasperatingly solemn until
Flowers urges, “Drop-kick the shame!” Hell, he sure has, and it’s
served him well.