New Vibrations: Brandon Flowers' Flamingo

“Welcome to fabulous Las Vegas / Give us your dreamers, your harlots and your sins / Las Vegas / Didn’t nobody tell you the house will always win?”

So begins Brandon Flowers’ new album, Flamingo, inviting his listeners to join him in “fabulous Las Vegas” — and he certainly delivers.

Flowers takes listeners into his personal world through the al- bum and shows them what life is like in what people call “Sin City.”

For his first breakout album, Flowers has managed to prove that he can produce a stand-alone album, while showing that he can be just as spectacular by himself as he is when part of a band.

Fans who have followed Flowers from his time with The Killers to his new solo album will not be disappointed.

For this album, the music sounds different and more mature than when the Killers initially came out with their first album, Hot Fuss, in 2004. Granted, this makes sense, since Flowers has had six years’ worth of experience with them before turning to producing his own music, and what a production it was.

One of the things that stands out the most in Flamingo are the lyrics. It is obvious that Flowers wrote from his personal experiences, and this makes the entire album stronger. His words are thought-provoking and are a mix of love, life in Las Vegas, and religion.

Thanks to such strong lyrics, many of his songs are extremely relatable, as is his duet with Jenny Lewis, in the track, “Hard Enough”: Many people have been there, and many people recognize that they did something wrong, messed up a relationship and realize that they're "older now."

The style of songs in this al- bum are as varied as the subject matter. There’s something for everyone: country, rock, pop, and more. Some of the strongest songs include the catchy “Only the Young” and the rollicking "Jilted Lovers & Broken Hearts."

Not only do these two songs get stuck in your head easily, but the lyrics also lure you in, as Flowers sings about what it was like to grow up and carve a life for himself in Sin City. This isn’t just another album of background music.

Some of the melodies leave something to be desired, however. “I Came Here to Get Over You” falls flat, and while “The Clock Was Ticking" has lyrics that can make the soft-hearted listener tear up, but does not deliver so much on the tune front.

In general, the first half of his album was stronger when it came to the melody — the first seven songs in general tended to be catchier and more engaging than the last seven.

While Flowers got the words right in this solo album, some of the melodies didn’t stand out as well as they should have to make this a truly solid 5-star album.

He certainly has enough tal- ent and material to keep writ- ing songs though, and his lyrics more than make up for it on the songs where the melodies did not deliver.

Not many albums can make listeners think so consistently, and almost every song has a spark that draws the listener in.

However, it would probably be more prudent to purchase the songs individually than getting the entire album, espe- cially since the second half of the album does not quite match up to the quality of the first.

If Flowers manages to keep this quality in his lyrics and works on his melody lines in the future, he could produce a truly outstanding album.