Viva Las Vegas! Viva rock'n' roll!
The Independent 
Simon Price
May 30, 2004

It's easy being cool when you're from Manhattan. Strokes? Interpol? Yeah Yeah Yeahs? Not impressed. Try it when you're from rattlesnakes-and- one-armed-bandit country. The Killers are from casino city - their first UK shows were advertised with the girlie- enticing strapline "Four Heartbreakers From Las Vegas" - and wrote their imminent debut album, the appropriately- named Hot Fuss, in a garage under the 120-degree dry heat of the Nevada sun.

The "Heartbreakers" tag isn't too much of an exaggeration: they have that boy band something-for-everyone factor (long hair, short hair, big hair, shaggy hair). Singer Brandon Flowers, who also plays keyboards (like Hot Hot Heat's Steve Bays), with his serious, Tarantino eyebrows, skinny tie and prowess with a five iron - he's interviewed in this month's Golfpunk magazine - has a certain Rat Pack suaveness. Bassist Mark Stoermer is tall and rangey, guitarist David Keuning, with his zig-zag guitar and Jagger tongue T-shirt, is the Nick Valensi of the set-up, and drummer Ronnie Vannucci, with his cartoon gurning and habit of standing up to play, is very much their Keith Moon.

They're clearly Anglophiles, and the love is beginning to be reciprocated. Re-released debut single "Mr Brightside" is number nine midweek, and Morrissey - the Anglophile's Anglophile - hand-picked them to support him at a recent Los Angeles show, and sat in on their soundcheck.

And all this (hot) fuss is not unjustified. The Killers have a habit of doing exactly what it says on the tin: one of their songs is called "Glamorous Indie Rock & Roll", and that's about the size of it. Tracks like "Believe Me Natalie" and "Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine" are stylish New Wave, intelligent but not verbose, emotional but not Emo. They are, as Vincent Vaughan would have put it in Swingers (the ultimate Vegas movie), so money.