Get unlimited access to everything VICE has to offer.

Turn off all ads on VICE.com

Exclusive New VICE Documentaries

Member Exclusive Features & Columns

Turn off all ads on VICE.com

Exclusive New VICE Documentaries

Member Exclusive Features & Columns

Turn off all ads on VICE.com

Exclusive New VICE Documentaries

Member Exclusive Features & Columns

4 Magazines Delivered to Your Door

VICE Album Reviews, August 21: Brandon Flowers, Sam Smith, GB and More

Another week, another day of reckoning for new releases. Which are good and which are awful? Let’s find out.

By Adam Christopher Smith

Share on X (Opens in new window)X

Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Facebook

Share using Native toolsShareCopied to clipboard

Music journalism is going to the wall, and places for sensible, well-informed, nuanced takes on the latest releases are dwindling. So we thought we might as well put the final nail in the coffin.

Read this month’s previous album reviews here and here.

Brandon Flowers Thrasher IslandListen, if you’re going to call your album Thrasher, I expect at least one moment of shredding guitars, double-kick drums, and lyrics calling Jesus a prick. But we’re talking about the Mormon frontman from the Killers here, so this ain’t gonna be God Hates Us All. No, disappointingly, there’s not even a hint that anyone involved in this record is going to Hell—instead, Brandon Flowers’ third solo record draws heavily from his experiences growing up as a kid who was exposed to “both genres”: country and western.

As such, I feel short-changed. Imagine walking into a metal bar as some guy onstage tells a crowd of devil worshipers they’re in for 40 minutes of “honky-tonk ragers, highway rambles, and winsome ballads,” culminating in a song where he’s visited by Elvis Presley while driving a Tesla? Imagine growing up as a teetotal LDS kid wanting to be drugged-out, androgynous David Bowie; becoming a millionaire........

© Vice