It’s been more than two years since Lana Del Rey predicted that the music industry was shifting toward country, and today that future has become the present. The Grammy for Album of the Year for “Cowboy Carter” has not signaled the end of the trend; on the contrary, in recent years we have witnessed the rise of Morgan Wallen and Ella Langley, the returns to the genre by Kacey Musgraves or Taylor Swift, and country incursions by artists from the most unexpected corners. That’s where Brandon Flowers enters the picture.
Having spent the last decade focused on The Killers, Brandon Flowers will release on August 21 his first solo album in more than ten years, and everything suggests it will be a country record. And when we say “everything suggests,” we mean that that is precisely what his two teaser singles offer, with their strengths and weaknesses.
On one hand there is “Plans” and on the other “Paradise.” The former is a placid country composition in the Glen Campbell vein, not skimping on lush strings, female backing vocals, or the inevitable harmonica. Its lyrics look back nostalgically at youth’s dreams and the plans that never came to fruition.
The latter slightly elevates the energy with banjos, electric guitars, and those same backing vocals, constructing a sound of classic country rock with a subtle disco pulse. “Paradise” portrays the routine of a worker who continues pursuing a paradise that always seems out of reach.
In no case does Brandon Flowers reinvent country with these two songs from “Thrasher,” though both are strong exercises in style and, above all, elegant in their execution. The strongest asset remains Flowers’ voice, standing above compositions that tend toward the conventional and lyrics that, perhaps due to their lack of specificity, feel as universal as they are vague.
