Killers - Pressure Machine (CD)

2021 release. For the second straight year, The Killers release a new album. The follow-up to 2020's Imploding the Mirage is titled Pressure Machine. The resultant album is a bildungsroman of the American Southwest, situated in Flowers' hometown of Nephi, UT (population: 5,300). It promises to be a more restrained, character study-driven album that sees Flowers digging into the grief of what he experienced in his adolescence in a town without a single stoplight, which mirrored the feeling of being stuck in the middle of nowhere during lockdowns. The album explores Nephi through it's people's personal struggles, including the opioid crisis, religious disenchantment and the strains of the American Dream.