Eleven years is a long time between drinks. THRASHER, released on the 21st of August through Island, is Brandon Flowers’ third solo album and his first since 2015’s The Desired Effect — and it arrives as a full country and western record, which is not the swerve it might first appear. Flowers grew up in Nephi, a small town in central Utah, on the Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash records his father Terry played him. “As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found my way back to my father’s music — ‘Country-Western’ (as he called it),” he says, “and discovered that the stories I carry really feel most at home in the skin of this beautiful American tradition.” Terry’s verdict on hearing it, apparently, was a single word: “Finally.”
He’s done it properly, too. The ten songs were cut at Nashville’s RCA Studio A with producers Shawn Everett and Jonathan Rado, and the room is stacked with the real thing — David Rawlings on guitar, Bruce Bouton on pedal steel, and 85-year-old harmonica legend Charlie McCoy, whose playing you already know from Dylan’s Nashville albums. The writing is where it earns its keep: “One of Us” is a tribute to his brother-in-law, “Miss America” tells the story of his sister getting out of an abusive relationship, and closer “An American Dream” grew out of conversations with his teenage sons and lands with a real wallop. Singles “Plans” and “Paradise” are the most immediate entry points, and there are moments — the mariachi flourish on “The Red Ground” — where the experiment is more interesting than tidy.
Reviews have been split down the middle, which is usually the sign of a record worth arguing about. The Guardian and NME both gave it four stars, while Rolling Stone and Paste thought the pivot didn’t quite fit him. Our take: this is a sincere record rather than a costume change, and the Killers-sized instincts for a big chorus haven’t gone anywhere — they’ve just been rehoused.
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