Brandon Flowers – ‘Thrasher’ review: The Killers’ man leaves Vegas for Nashville on personal country hoedown

“I’m finally ready to do this,” The Killers frontman Brandon Flowers told NME about how now, at the age of 45, he’s found himself at a point with “an evolution of my craft” to write the songs that tell us the previously untold stories of his childhood growing up in Nephi, Utah. As a vehicle through those sleepy towns, tall mountains and red canyons, ‘Mr Brightside’ collects us in a pick-up truck of the old-school country that his dad would play to him as a kid, long before Oasis, New Order and The Smiths turned him onto a life of ‘Glamorous Indie Rock & Roll’. READ MORE: Brandon Flowers tells us about making his most personal album yet: “I’m finally ready to do this” He’s dabbled in Americana before, shaking off that ‘best UK band from the US’ label and Anglophilia of The Killers’ debut ‘Hot Fuss’ to go full Springsteen on ‘Sam’s Town’, with some country leanings regularly cropping up until the full-blown desert Western of their ‘Nebraska’-esque last album ‘Pressure Machine’ – where ‘Thrasher’ takes its cue. This time, it’s personal, but still loaded with vivid characters and his trademark chest-beating bravado. From Post Malone to Beyoncé, country music has been oddly in vogue...