After making fans spend more than half of 2023 waiting for new material, The Killers have finally released a new single, "Your Side of Town." However, more new music may not be coming very soon.
It appears that the album for which the single was originally intended has now been scrapped.
On August 26, the band's frontman, Brandon Flowers, revealed in an interview with The Times that "halfway through recording [the album] I realized, ‘I can’t do this.' This isn’t the kind of record... I think this will be the... I don’t think you’ll see us making this type of music any more.”
The Killers pose in appropriately moody fashion for the cover of their new single, "Your Side of Town"
“This is the crisis I’m in,” Flowers continued. “The Killers are my identity and our songs fill the seats, but I’m more fulfilled making music like [the Killers' 2021 album] Pressure Machine. I found a side of myself writing it that was strong. This was the guy I’d been looking for! I’m as proud of [the band's 2004 debut LP] Hot Fuss as you can be for something you did when you were 20, but I’m not 20. So I’m thinking about the next phase of my life.”
Despite his aforementioned crisis, Flowers and his bandmates have nonetheless come up with a fabulous synthpop single with "Your Side of Town," a track which finds Flowers wearing his love of such groups as New Order and Pet Shop Boys on his sleeve.
Flowers is such an avowed fan of Pet Shop Boys that he was selected to present the duo with their award for Outstanding Contribution to Music at the 2009 BRIT Awards, where he told a story about how he was forced by his mother to choose between buying a copy of The Smiths' Louder than Bombs or Pet Shop Boys' best-of collection, Discography. In the end, he went with the latter, noting in his speech, "They can write one hell of a pop song."
"Sometimes you want to be more macho and you want the word 'rock' next to your name, but I'm not ashamed of it or anything: I love pop music," Flowers told the BBC in 2015. "And I definitely have a knack for it."
Flowers and Pet Shop Boys frontman Neil Tennant have forged a friendship over the years, with Tennant popping up to perform an acoustic version of "Rent" at one of Flowers' shows, not to mention a notable Killers / Pet Shop Boys collaboration at Glastonbury 2019, where the two groups teamed up to deliver a version of "Always on My Mind" for the ages.
As of August 28, Flowers has offered no further suggestions as to when fans might get an update on when The Killers might take another swing at a new album, but here's hoping listeners at least won't have to wait another year for the band's next single.
