While the Killers are on hiatus, Brandon Flowers is returning to his solo career, and that means a tilt toward pop. The Killers had plenty of their own big, hooky choruses but still had a brittle rock backbone even during their most high-octane moments. Flowers worked with Ariel Rechtshaid on The Desired Effect, the follow-up to his 2010 debut solo album Flamingo, and the first single “Can’t Deny My Love” is a burst of brooding synth funk. Say what you want about “Get Lucky,” but it seems to have infiltrated the pop hive mind in a lasting way. Flowers has one of those divisive voices that you either love or hate, and I’ve always loved his bellowing pitch-perfect dramatics, so this song works for me. He hasn’t been shy about vying for radio rotation, and these pop histrionics seem well-suited for that. Listen below.

He’ll perform the song on The Tonight Show this evening.

The Desired Effect features guests appearance by Ethan Farmer, Bruce Hornsby, Tony Levin, Kenny Arnof, Angel Deradoorian, Joey Waronker, Ronnie Vannucci Jr., Rechtshaid associated Danielle Haim (on drums), and Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant (on the Bronski Beat-sampling “I Can Change”).

Here’s the tracklist:
01 “Dreams Come True”
02 “Can’t Deny My Love”
03 “I Can Change”
04 “Still Want You”
05 “Between Me And You”
06 “Lonely Town”
07 “Digging Up The Heart”
08 “Never Get You Right”
09 “Untangled Love”
10 “The Way It’s Always Been”

And here’s the album cover:

The Desired Effect is out 5/19 on Island. Pre-order here.