Review Summary: Although not exactly meticulous in its execution, Pressure Machine is an uncharacteristically daring album that is far more powerful in its humility than the tired and overwrought glamour pomp they've become notorious for.
"The kingdom of God, it's a pressure machine." So says Brandon Flowers, casting an unsolicited series of questions before his listeners under the guise of a testimony - of numbed pains in small town America. Does this simple yet unforgiving life make for a more sincere humanity? Should a person of broken will continue forward knowing they will be defeated around the corner? Is the greatest character in a person created from that very perseverance through those defeats? And having that in mind, is this life what you had chosen, or just what ended up? For better or worse, does the kingdom of God truly lie within us? Flowers answers before the questions are formed, stating, "If there really is a judgment, when he pulls my chart he will reject my actions. But he will know my heart." The rest is uncharacteristically daring and far more subdued than any of their works before it.
The small town in question is Nephi, Utah, where Flowers not only grew up but was shaped by tragedies and bitter tales from around the community. Each track on Pressure Machine touches on these people who knew everyone around them - trusting people, and honest people who made bad decisions nonetheless. Whereas Sam's Town was a focalization on Brandon himself and all of his qualities and faults that brought him to sudden fame from his small town life, Pressure Machine is the inverse, a dry and introspective look at the people left behind that weren't so fortunate. While the effect isn't jarring as a scene from Gummo, it holds a stronger narrative weight with Terrible Thing and Desperate Things, the former about a gay teenager on the verge of suicide, and the latter recounting a tale of an officer who pulled over a woman "doing 60 in a 35" only to find her beaten and bloodied, finds more than sympathy for her, knowing her husband who did it, and although being married himself, meets the woman to a secluded place where he doesn't stop her from unbuttoning her clothes, "justifying sin" when things go farther than they should.
Although not entirely meticulous in its execution, the value of Pressure Machine is in its lyrical depth, having been penned out by Brandon before the music had even been composed, and far before the bookend segments of dialogue were flavored in by actual residents of the town. As unbelieveable as it is to hear such a stark turn in the band's sound, there are some Killers clichés to confirm this isn't a ghostwrite, as they rehash the same comical metaphors of runaway horses being set free in a one-horse town, and the songs are unapologetic facsimiles of Springsteen (whom Brandon recently rerecorded "A Dustland Fairytale" from Day & Age with), but the difference is that it actually works here. Pressure Machine is a static shock into their discography - a stark step backwards to reflect on a career. And one can only hope it has a lasting effect on their coming album (and what will be their third in less than two years), because these lamentations draw forth some of the most profound musical poetry the group has written.
Sleepwalker is arguably the closest to previous works, but minus the swollen pomp of stage pop that usually litters it. And instead of the vague novelties of Brandon's deal with the devil as his reasons for reaching fame and his hubris infecting each track, there is some beautiful wordplay, a juxtaposition of an irksome lyric, "Everyone is afraid of something, even the strongest man alive," and a stirring, but indistinct anthem, "It doesn't come from without, it comes from within." Then along with the melancholy duress of Joy Division throughout to which the album cover evokes parallels with, there's the pummeling thunder of Fleetwood Mac drums on "In the Car Outside," and an enjoyable exit-jaunt that echoes the lead out of "The Chain." "In Another Life" and "Pressure Machine" give the album further emotional weight as highlights alongside the cathartic, droning opener.
Things here not only keep their feet on the ground, they reach out for a solemn walk through a wasteland to find the signs of life. Compare the ambition and humanity to Nebraska, or the thickness to Tusk, knowing it may take multiple listens to soak the moisture, but the result is a breathtaking pastoral venture into poor and secluded America. Just as their heroes they have unrelentingly paid homage to in the last couple years, everything enclosed in Pressure Machine will go down as a masterpiece of broken Americana.
