(originally published in Birmingham Weekly in May, 2005)

The Killers are the best British band ever to hail from Las Vegas . Hell, let’s make that “to hail from anywhere outside of the UK .” It’s amazing enough that they so succinctly conjure up the bouncy synth-pop of New Order and The Smiths, that front man Brandon Flowers channels the spirits of Ziggy-era Bowie and The Cure’s Robert Smith (if he were, you know, less mopey all the damn time). But to have done so coming out of Vegas, land of casinos and illusionists and Siegfried and Roy ?

Since forming in late 2002, The Killers have become one of the truer overnight success stories in the music world. Within a year, they had played to critical raves in New York and the United Kingdom and signed deals with London-based Lizard King and Island Records. Shortly after that, they began touring the UK to sell-out houses, simultaneously finishing off their debut record, Hot Fuss (a British glam title if ever their was one). The disc hit big on both sides of the Atlantic in June of last year, spawning two huge singles (“Somebody Told Me” and “Mr. Brightside”) and gathering excellent reviews from all over.

And now, just as they come into Birmingham for City Stages, The Killers seem to be at the absolute peak of buzz. They’ve made Entertainment Weekly ‘s “Must List,” Rolling Stone ‘s “Hot List” (as the “Hot Band”) and been called the “Next Big Thing” by Spin . They earned three nominations for this year’s Grammy awards. They’ve moved over 1.5 million copies of their disc.

And in spite of all this mainstream success, they’re actually a really good band.

I know. It’s scary to imagine and tough to comprehend. But these four guys from the West have put together some of the most natural sounding British new wave glam rock ever. It’s not dated at all, and yet still sounds for all the world like the mid-’80s never ended. If you somehow escaped hearing their first single, you should also know that their lyrics are clever:

“Somebody told me
That you had a boyfriend
Who looked like a girlfriend
That I had in February of last year”

…and I’ll be damned if that’s not one of the greatest pick-up lines you’ll never hear.

It remains to be seen whether The Killers are a flash in the pan, two-hit wonder. On the one hand, their album is largely brilliant, immediately catchy and clever; the guys are young and still well ahead of themselves in terms of image and writing abilities; and “Best New Artist” (a traditional kiss of death) was not among their Grammy nominations. On the other hand, they are young; they came from out of nowhere over the past year, which might be too much, too fast; and their popularity could easily be attributed to a sense of nostalgia for the Brit pop sound that so many people my age grew up with.

Either way, though, you’ve got little excuse not to at least give them a listen at City Stages. If they fade away, you’ll get to see a really great performance, or perhaps get your fill of the latest retro wave. If they turn out to have longevity, you can catch them before they become too big for the festival scene, and then you can say that you saw them when.

Me, I’ve never been to Vegas. But I’d gladly put odds on being able to say the latter.