Battle Born

The title comes from the phrase on the Nevada state flag, which is also the name of the band's studio in Las Vegas, where most of the record was made. The band ended its hiatus in October 2011, and Flowers said the first sessions were strained, with the members spending about a week just eyeballing each other in a room. He called Runaways, the first single, a turning point and said it and Miss Atomic Bomb were the backbone of the record.

The band had wanted to work with a single producer, but scheduling difficulties led to five: Steve Lillywhite, Damian Taylor, Brendan O'Brien, Stuart Price and Daniel Lanois. Alan Moulder mixed part of it. Three tracks were recorded at Blackbird Studios in Nashville. Heart of a Girl was co-written with Lanois.

It debuted at three on the Billboard 200 with 113,000 copies in its first week and at one in Britain with 93,989, the band's fourth consecutive British number one. Metacritic averaged 64 from 27 reviews. Kate Mossman gave it three stars in The Guardian and singled out Heart of a Girl and From Here on Out, and readers of Rolling Stone voted it the second best album of 2012. The tour included a show at the 90,000-capacity Wembley Stadium in June 2013.