Brandon Flowers Crossfire - great intro, but . . .

"Crossfire" is the new single from The Killers' frontman Brandon Flowers. How often does a top band's lead singer pull off a solo project successfully? Often the results are underwhelming and they are soon back in the studio with their band mates. Listening to the first few seconds of Crossfire and you might think Brandon had pulled off a rare exception to the rule and was going to deliver a hit on the scale of Human, his band's biggest and one of the most popular songs of the last couple of years.

It's a fantastic start with atmospheric bell chimes, lush guitar chords, the start of the drum beat and finally a great bassline, all in the first 40 seconds. And the rest of the song is not short of things to admire, particularly Flowers' vocal performance which is full and intense as you would expect. At times he strongly reminds me of Don McLean with a voice that is muscular, heartfelt and quintessentially American.

Reading comments on the internet and other reviews, they have mostly been about whether it is much different to The Killers and the video (see below) which features him as the captive of some ninjas and rescued by Charlize Theron. I think the general consensus is that he has produced an average Killers song. I think that is unfair - his distinctive vocal meant it was always going to sound a bit like what has gone before but it something new. The Killers have always struck me as fairly gimicky and stagey, this is more stripped down and emotionally raw. And that intro is special.