The Killers HOT FUSS (Island)

There’s something maddeningly familiar about the Killers. Hot Fuss, their debut, was first released in Great Britain, where it received the same kind of ecstatic praise that greeted Scottish disco-pop rockers Franz Ferdinand. The latter’s chart-topping "Take Me Out" could easily be mistaken for the synth-laden Killers single "Somebody Told Me." Vocalist Brendan Flowers can be compared with Morrissey or Shawn Christensen of Stellastarr (the Killers supported both artists on recent tours), though he proves unequal to either in skill and heart. In fact, the only tangible difference between the Killers — whose name is lifted from an old New Order video in which a band called the Killers pretended to be New Order — and so many other hip neo-new-wavers is that they’re from Las Vegas, not Brooklyn. There are a few choice flashes on Hot Fuss where the quartet, clothed and coiffed like a slightly more hygienic version of the Strokes, take some un-ironic risks: "Andy, You’re a Star" features a gospel choir, and "Everything Will Be Alright" is a contemplative track full of denial and disbelief on which Flowers gasps, "You took me by surprise." It’s a shame the same can’t be said of the rest of Hot Fuss.