The Killers

Journalists don’t get take-backs. Your glowing recommendations survive for eternity through Google searches and glossy press kits. Take this writer’s enthusiastic endorsement of the Killers in these very pages (“Nice Guys Finish First,” April 15). At the time, the Las Vegas foursome was surfing a wave of prerelease hype for its synth-singed debut, Hot Fuss. Cool-as-ice keyboards and leering, new-wave mannerisms made cuts such as “Mr. Brightside” and “Somebody Told Me” sound like perfect updates of new-romantic smoothness and debonair Britpop charm, with vocalist Brandon Flowers lending lanky pinup potential to the package. Fast forward. The Killers don’t seem quite so deadly; the band’s aping of Morrissey, Duran Duran and Blondie suddenly sounds anemic now that the album is finally in stores. But at least Flowers still has those lethally good looks.