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Sep 18, 201290Battle Born is the kind of rock 'n' roll record that almost nobody makes anymore: it's bombastic and excessive and oversized, but it's also a grand and universal statement, a master class of album structure and sequencing, and a culmination of everything Brandon Flowers and The Killers have done up to this point.
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Oct 22, 201280This ends up as a thrilling victory of an album because at its heart it has the same great swirling mass of melancholic energy that drove their debut. [Nov 2012, p.88]
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Sep 25, 201280Battle Born, doesn't quite reach those heights [of their debut, Hot Fuss], but it comes close.
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Sep 17, 201280For the first time, the ballads are as memorable as the dance cuts.
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Sep 17, 201280The album is at its best with "A Matter Of Time" and "From Here On Out."
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Sep 17, 201280They're veterans that know how to use their tools, so even if the raw materials may not be quite as compelling as their earliest singles, the overall craft on Battle Born is more appealing.
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Sep 14, 201280Battle Born is a belter, an album made for bedrooms, stadiums and old-school denim jacket patches alike.
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Sep 14, 201280Flush with stirring, singalong melodies, they construct exciting, catchy songs that draw on the dynamics of stadium rock established by classic bands.
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Sep 21, 201275These are big songs, determined to deliver photo-finish climaxes every few seconds.
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Sep 18, 201275It's the band's most fully realized record, and that should keep them at the front of a dwindling pack.
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Sep 18, 201275They say go big or go home, but The Killers went home and made something as big as fans' expectations.
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Sep 19, 201270In many ways, Battle Born will live up to everything you wish of it, just not every Lanois-Lillywhite-and-O'Brien-helmed second.
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Sep 17, 201270If you've the stomach to set aside your indie sensibilities and endure the occasional terrifying flashback to '(Everything I Do) I Do It For You', Battle Born holds some majestic moments.
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Oct 4, 201265Naturally there some moments where having too producers and visions hurts them, but for the most part, the band sticks to the formula that's worked in the past.
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Sep 18, 201260[With] excesses as egregious as the half-spoken echoes of Battle Born, the cheese is amped so far that what this really sounds like is the soundtrack to some lost 90s Disney film.
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Sep 18, 201260[Battle Born] might be their wildest neon-Springsteen fever dream yet.
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Sep 17, 201260With their simultaneous emphasis on the pedal-to-the-metal triumphalism of rock's yesteryear and their ultimate submission to tomorrow's grinding machinery, the Killers' new album may as well be called Battle Born This Way.
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Sep 14, 201260You struggle to find the energy till the third or fourth listen, when Heart of a Girl and From Here on Out reveal themselves to be the sweetest, most sincere explorations of a kind of US rock that will always raise hairs on the necks of those who like this sort of thing.
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Sep 14, 201260As ever, his lyrics sound better the less you think about them, but you know The Killers are getting it right because most of the time, you don't need to.
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Dec 4, 201255They too often edge into Meat Loaf/Jim Steinman territory, where every detail becomes a cause for operatic exaggeration and any clunky line or cliche sounds ridiculous. [No. 93, p.56]
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Sep 18, 201250Nobody's asking the Killers to restock their eyeliner, but if they insist on making everything so over-the-top, it would serve them well to crack a smile every now and then.
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Sep 17, 201250Battle Born is music played in the past tense.
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Sep 28, 201240Aiming for Springsteen-like glory, they settle instead for overcooked melodrama on parade of would-be anthems sufficiently over the top to make Muse envious. [Nov 2012, p.76]
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Sep 19, 201240Aside from "Battle Born", none of the other high points succeed against the influences The Killers have long been aping, much less against those times when the band has hit that sentimental ache that exists in all of us.
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Sep 17, 201240This is a production in search of an album, a massive empty shell, a big expensive nothing.
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Sep 17, 201240This is a collection of massive-sounding, impeccably-produced songs which mask their dearth of ideas with hackneyed bluster.
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Sep 24, 201230Battle Born is a confused mess of an album, drenched in influences but positively overextended in its execution, the band trying way too hard to do something grander and more complex than what they've done before.