When you’re critics’ darlings and sell 5 million copies of your debut album, it’s tough to hit the follow-up out of the park. Well, there’s good news and bad news with Sam’s Town: 1) It’s an incredible album. 2) It’s a major disappointment.

No, I’m not schizophrenic, but apparently The Killers are. For anyone coming into their sophomore release looking for The Killers to pick up where Hot Fuss left off, that band is apparently gone. Gone are the dominant synths, the new wave/disco vibe, and the frankly somewhat derivative Duran Duran sound—and with that, a signifiant chunk of their fan base will be gone as well.

The massive wall of sound is still there, the soap-operatic melodrama of music that made their singles “Mr Brightside” and “Somebody Told Me” instant classics catchier than chlamydia, only now it’s powered by guitars and bass, sounding a bit more like old-school U2 mixed with The Cure and a dash of Queen (don’t buy into the Springsteen comparison everyone’s making simply because the band says they listen to him—that’s an inaccurate assessment of the sound).

Yes, on first listen there are precious few radio-ready hooks, but on subsequent spins you realize that’s a good thing; this is an album that continues to grow on you over time, that has a lot more depth to it than one or two easy hits. Not to say that there aren’t some great singles: “Sam’s Town” and “Bones” in particular are better than 99.9% of the interchangeable Nickelback drivel in endless repeat on rock radio right now. The rest of the album is almost as strong, with only “For Reasons Unknown” standing out as a true misfire.

No, The Killers don’t write the best lyrics in the music world, nor do they break a lot of new ground with their music or really do anything terribly original. All they do on Sam’s Town is assemble a powerful rock album that’s solid from end to end—and that’s more than enough.