More about: The Killers

The Killers have unleashed the YouTube video to 'Land Of The Free' - their first new track since the release of their ultra-personal worldwide number one album Wonderful Wonderful. The audio was released on Spotify earlier today.

Whilst their last album, featuring hit single 'The Man', explored issues at the heart of Flowers' marriage, this soaring ballad takes on the sad state of affairs in the USA at the minute - racially-aggravated murder, Trump's border wall, mass shootings - and what it feels like to keep tuning into the news to see such awful things happening.

Suitably, the Spike Lee-directed video features scenes on the Mexican border and evokes powerful feelings about the refugee crisis since 

This track and video would likely have made Woody Guthrie proud - and recalls the wisdom of Tom Morello's quote last year: "desperate times deserve desperate songs."

Brandon Flowers today took to Beats 1's Instagram to explain precise moments that galvanised the creation of this social justice song.

Speaking directly to camera, the 'Mr.Brightside' hitmaker started listing tragedies that he says contravene the values that his country was built on. The reference to the Constitution of the United States here highlights the ironic title of the song.

According to the lead singer, who speaks sensitively when mentioning this, the first seed for this track was planted in 2012 when the Sandy Hook shooting happened – the incident at a US school where 20-year-old mass murderer Adam Lanza shot dead 20 children aged between six and seven and six adult staff members. Before driving to the school he killed his mother.

Flowers then cites the needless murder of Eric Garner by an NYPD chokehold, and the tragic murder of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year old killed by neighbourhood watchman George Zimmerman, whose death galvanised the Black Lives Matter social movement, to be among things that sparked the need to write this.

Trump’s campaign for a wall on the Mexico border also contributed to the narrative of the song.

The Killers on Trump

The anti-Trump sentiment of the above streaming song will hardly come as a surprise to fans of the band. They've made no disguise of their feelings towards the shit-haired president.

Vannucci Jr. spoke of terrible Trump policy in an interview with Gigwise last year: "You don’t have to be into politics, you just have to be alive to know that something doesn’t feel right."

Guitarist Dave Keuning - who's left Killers touring duties to focus on a solo career and his family - recently called Donald Trump a "dipshit" at his show in Dingwalls on 10 December. Meanwhile, Brandon Flowers called Trump "batshit crazy" in an interview with NME last year.

The Killers new album?

'Land of the Free' may be a standalone release but it's likely there will be more to follow soon and hopefully not another five year wait between albums as was the case with the gap between Wonderful Wonderful and Battle Born.

We first discovered The Killers were working on new material in a candid interview backstage at Rock In Rio Lisbon in July last year. Flowers said there had been “late night recording sessions in hotel rooms." And drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr. said “they’d been "trying some new things production wise. There’s been a lot of growth and, for want of a better word, re-invigorating things.”

The first official announcement the band were working on new material came in November last year when they posted a notice on social media. And fans got excited seeing a shot on Instagram of The Killers in the studio back in December. We look forward to seeing what direction they take us listeners.

More about: The Killers