On this week’s installment of CBS This Morning’s Saturday Sessions, The Killers debuted the new song “Blowback”, off their now delayed album Imploding the Mirage. From the comfort of their studio in Utah, Brandon Flowers and Ronnie Vannucci Jr. also covered Tom Petty’s “The Waiting” and played their own recent single “Caution”.
At least in the initial live performance, “Blowback” is a soaring piano ballad, with Vannucci’s gentle guitar lapping at the edges of hearing. “She’s breathing in the blowback,” Flowers belts, “Born into poor white trash and always typecast.” While the chords overflow with loveliness, this is a song that lives and dies on Flower’s vocal delivery. He’s more than equal to the task.
The Killers had played Tom Petty’s “The Waiting” once before, after Petty’s death in 2017. That performance was loaded with emotion, but with the passage of time, the band was able to approach the song in a spirit of pure joy. Both men can’t help but bop in place, and Flowers doesn’t stop smiling the whole time. Check out “Blowback” and the cover of “The Waiting” below, as well as a new live rendition of “Caution”.
Imploding the Mirage, once due out May 29th, has been pushed back to an unspecified date because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Killers recently shared the single “Fire in the Bone”. Last week, the rockers participated in Lady Gaga’s One World: Together At Home concert, and in March, they digitally invited Jimmy Kimmel into Flowers’ bathroom for a home performance of “Caution”.