Backstage Pass

The Killers wanted "Sam's Town" (Island) to be great.

They dress it up in the trappings of grandeur - offering a "enterlude" and an "exitlude" to book-end the album, epic production from Alan Moulder and Flood, styling and photography by Anton Corbijn. Singer Brandon Flowers then set the hype machine in motion by declaring that "Sam's Town" would be "one of the best albums in the past 20 years."

Unfortunately, "Sam's Town" is not one of the best albums in the past 20 days. It's not even one of the best albums of the past 20 hours (especially considering The Hold Steady's new Vagrant album "Boys & Girls in America" also comes out today).

Flowers has cited Bruce Springsteen as an influence for the new album, and that's evident on the puffed-up "This River Is Wild," with its talk of Mary and its "Darkness at the Edge of Town" ending, and in the way he tries to sound Boss-ish in some of his vocals.

This doesn't work, mainly because The Killers are a synth-pop band, not The E Street Band. "For Reasons Unknown" sounds like The Cars circa "Shake It Up." "Bling (Confessions of a King)" opens like an Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark B-side. And "Read My Mind" plays like a long-lost Flesh for Lulu track, as does the first single, "When You Were Young."

Not that there's anything wrong with any of that. After all, The Killers' debut, "Hot Fuss" succeeded by playing off Duran Duran's pop flair with "Somebody Told Me" and "Mr. Brightside."

On "Sam's Town," The Killers do themselves (and their songs) a disservice by trying to be something they're not. "Fake it 'til you make it" may work in business, but in music, it only makes you look pompous and silly. ("Sam's Town," in stores today; grade: C+)

Listen to "Sam's Town" here