Unreleased tracks usually stay locked away in recording vaults, preserved only for the musicians and engineers who worked on the sessions. Every so often, though, a song is kept on hold simply because the album it was written for could not accommodate its tone. That was the situation Brandon Flowers addressed during a recent solo stop at the O2 Apollo in Manchester, where he used his stage time to give a live debut to an unreleased piece named Diamonds On Black Velvet.
The performance had the hallmarks of classic Roy Orbison, leaning into patient drama and melodic tension. Flowers began the track in quiet fashion, singing the opening passage over sparse instrumentation: Diamonds on black velvet, floating in her eyes, falling from her fingers, every moment lingers, luminescent sky. The room filled out as backing vocalists joined him for a much heavier chorus, allowing Flowers to push his voice into the higher register: Lay me on the altar, baby I am a thorn, pull me by a string. Are you coming with me? Are we going to shoot through the windows and tear along the night? I do not need to think twice, she is all that I wanted and more.
Devoted listeners of both Flowers and The Killers were already familiar with the title. The song took shape during the writing period for the band's 2021 LP, Pressure Machine. Flowers and drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr. initially spoke about the track six years ago during an interview with Amazon Music. Later on, Flowers turned to Instagram Live to explain why it was excluded from the final tracklist of the 2021 release. In his telling, the track possessed an open-hearted, bright romanticism that felt out of sync with the solemn, austere small-town portraits running across Pressure Machine.
Bringing the composition into the spotlight now coincides with his current run of solo concerts in support of Thrasher. That record represents his first solo effort in a decade, arriving after 2015's The Desired Effect. On Thrasher, Flowers turned toward country sounds and drew directly from memories of his childhood years spent in Utah. Still, Flowers made it known back in August that Thrasher is merely the starting half of a two-part collection. A companion album has already been finished, and that subsequent release leans heavily into the romantic songwriting style that made Diamonds On Black Velvet such an awkward fit for The Killers several years ago.
Flowers has noted that the follow-up sister album sits adjacent to country music rather than embracing the style outright. Instead, he likened the sound to the mid-tempo roots rock favored by Tom Petty or The Traveling Wilburys. Because of that thematic direction, Diamonds On Black Velvet looks like a natural candidate for the completed project. It also is not the only fresh piece he has brought to the stage on this run. At an earlier concert in Bristol, Flowers unveiled another new composition called A Good Man Is Hard To Find, alongside a performance of The Coral's Dreaming Of You.
This solo tour, which opened with an appearance at the Royal Albert Hall in London, is now moving through its closing dates. Flowers has weekend dates booked in Glasgow and Birmingham, followed by the final concert of the UK and Ireland trek in Dublin on Tuesday, October 27. Introducing these sidelined songs to audiences provides a clear view into where his songwriting will land when the second chapter of this project arrives.
