Starting to put out albums a bit more frequently, are we? Well, after a nail-biting two year wait following the release of their first hit-album Hot Fuss in mid-2004, The Killers came to class with a new album, Sam’s Town (2006), for show and tell. Now, just a measly year later, Sawdust (2007) is released. It appears to me that Island Records enjoyed the 9 million copies sold of the band’s first two albums a little too much to let this Vegas based group gamble on another two year delay. But, if you are hoping for a full-length album packed with new and original songs, you will be sorely disappointed. This B-side album is packed with nothing but re-makes, un-released bonus tracks and covers blended in with a couple of new songs. To me, bonus tracks have seriously lost their luster since the days of fast-forwarding the Green Day Dookie cassette past the end of song 14 for two minutes to get to “All By Myself”.

By no means am I standing outside your local record store with a sign saying “Do Not Buy the New Killers CD”, but I would say that this album is more suited to the die-hard Killers fans and not those of us who enjoyed some of their post punk sounding hits like “Mr. Brightside” and “Somebody Told Me”.

With respect to the several covers on this album, I am not sure if the band was trying to make known some self-proclaimed musical diversity, but I think that they did injustice to a perfectly good First Edition song in “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town” and similarly to the Dire Straits “Romeo and Juliet”. They even managed to get Lou Reed from Velvet Underground on the album, only to make a song, “Tranquilize” that would have been amazing had it not been for the 3rd Grade girls choir chiming in during the chorus.

On the flip side, I did enjoy Jacques Lucont’s Thin White Duke remix of “Mr. Brightside”, new song “Under the Gun” and the cover of Joy Division’s “Shadowplay”. For now, I am interested to see which direction the band is going to go from here. When I sit on Santa’s lap this year, I am going to ask Father Christmas to send The Killers back to the ‘New Wave’ electronic rock style where Vegas meets the UK, but that’s just me.

The Killers - Tranquilize (Feat. Lou Reed)

The Killers - Shadowplay (Joy Division)

The Killers - Under the Gun

Green Day - F.O.D. (go to 4:22)

Buy The Killers - Sawdust on Amazon.com