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Before Stuart Price and The Killers originally hooked up in 2004 the worlds of dance and indie were often mutually exclusive with dance remixes of indie tracks, despite a few notable exceptions, often no more than mismanaged afterthoughts. However, when the Thin White Duke remix of 'Mr Brightside' burst on the scene it captured the imagination of both the indie kids and the clubbing masses and became one of the most talked about tracks on both the pages of NME and Mixmag. Fast forward four years and post Klaxons indie dance has almost become a cliché with every new band and its dog incorporating synthesizers and drum machines. Still, this hasn't deterred The Killers reuniting with Mr Price to produce their third album, 'Day & Age'.
Production wise The Killers latest offering, 'Human', takes plenty of cues from synth pop and nu-wave as well as Stuart Price's earlier work as Zoot Woman. All in all the track works pretty efficiently with a big electronic sounding drum kit pushing the song along to its dance infused instrumental outro. However on closer inspection of Brandon Flower's nonsensical lyrics seems to let all the shiny production down. Take the grammatically incredulous chorus line of 'Are we human or are we dancer' which simply begs the question, "What does he mean?!"
Like The Killer's live performance at the European Music Awards that was all at once motionless and spectacular thanks to the use of Fifty foot LCD screens, 'Human' may well be a case of style over substance.
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