{"id":3185,"date":"2010-10-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-24T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mancunion.manchestermediagroup.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/10\/25\/album-flamingo-brandon-flowers-2\/"},"modified":"2017-09-13T00:59:42","modified_gmt":"2017-09-12T23:59:42","slug":"album-flamingo-brandon-flowers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/2010\/10\/25\/album-flamingo-brandon-flowers\/","title":{"rendered":"Album: Flamingo &#8211; Brandon Flowers"},"content":{"rendered":" Flamingo &#8211; Brandon Flowers\n<p><strong>2 Stars<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The progression from frontman to solo artist is a well documented one. Morrissey, Richard Ashcroft, Sting \u2013 all have tried their hand at breaking away from the constraints of a rock band democracy to pursue their own creative interests. But the one thing that the above have in common is that their music ends up sounding exactly like that of their associated acts, just not quite as good. And with the release of debut solo album <em>Flamingo<\/em>, Brandon Flowers can now be added to this list.<\/p>\n<p>While the formulaic pop structures that Flowers has perfected over the course of three Killers albums are put to good use here (take the <em>Sam\u2019s Town<\/em>-esque anthemic choruses and big orchestration on opening track \u2018Welcome To Fabulous Las Vegas\u2019 for example), the glam-rock aesthetic that we\u2019ve become so accustomed to has been stripped of both glamour and rock, no doubt leaving Killers fans feeling nostalgic.<\/p>\n<p>The dream-like \u2018Only The Young\u2019 sees Flowers stumble upon a musical wasteland, while on annoyingly catchy bonus track \u2018The Clock Was Tickin\u2019\u2019, he lends his southern drawl to what at first appears a homage to alt-country, but just turns into a farcical attempt at Guthrie-inspired talking blues.<\/p>\n<p>But it would be unfair to judge this collection of songs by Killers standards, and there are some gems. A collaboration with Jenny Lewis on \u2018Hard Enough\u2019 brings some much-needed respite from Flowers\u2019 dreary warbling, and the more up-beat \u2018Jilted Lovers &amp; Broken Hearts\u2019 is one of the few songs on the album with substance and direction, resembling \u2018Losing Touch\u2019 and \u2018Spaceman\u2019. And of course there\u2019s \u2018Crossfire\u2019, the album-teaser released last month, which is basically a re-working of Killers classic \u2018Human\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>However, for all its introspective musings, emotional urgency and widescreen imagery, <em>Flamingo<\/em> is just missing something. And it might just be the other three band members.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Eoghan Bennett, Music Editor<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2 Stars The progression from frontman to solo artist is a well documented one. Morrissey, Richard Ashcroft, Sting \u2013 all have tried their hand at breaking away from the constraints of a rock band democracy to pursue their own creative interests. But the one thing that the above have in common is that their music [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":616,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[137,138,139,132,140,111],"coauthors":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3185"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/616"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3185"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}