Just thought I'd post a Yeah Yeah Yeahs review. Fans of SYB, please, show more mercy toward this humble critic than I have toward the album.
Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Show Your Bones Review
Let’s begin back in 2001, when an underground Punk Rock trio named the Yeah Yeah Yeahs released a series of impressive EPs. Sidestepping much of the New New Wave sounds emerging from that area during that time, the YYY produce a beguiling mixture of Metal, Blues, and straight up Pop Rock that can whisper as well as squeal. Guitarist Nick Zinner grinds out distorted riffs at buzz saw volumes and with great precision. Drummer Brian Chase pounds out beats like the love child of Janet Weiss and Dave Grohl. Karen O fronts the whole affair; a gal with Chrissie Hyndes’ voice, Jerry Lee Lewis’ onstage energy, and a drug- addicted baton twirler’s fashion sense. Backed with the advanced press and their sensational image, the band records their debut LP with an inexperienced producer and a limited budget. The result, 2001’s Fever to Tell, is an instant success; a messy collection of songs, produced with an in media res feel, and sure to inspire short attention spans and disco pyromania. Taking it to the edge of power-punk monotony, Fever to Tell altered its sound to round off the final tracks, subliming into a beautiful, balanced pop album that hinted at the new, mature directions that the band might be heading. Suddenly its 2006 and, instead of the follow-up masterpiece to Fever, we get the mixed success sophomore LP, Show Your Bones.
The second disc starts off with single “Gold Lion”, a fine, stripped down number that manages to put a little modest swagger into its minimalist melody. However, the departure from Fever to Tell is evident from the first track on; Karen O has toned down the vocal acrobatics, Chase keeps it simple on the drums, and Zinner seems to have switched his guitar from kill!kill!kill! to stun mode. As though frightened by the same ghost of “The Clone Sophomore Album” that plagued Interpol and The Strokes, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs have played against all their strengths and made, essentially, a folk album. To the band’s credit, most of the songs are melodically well crafted and finely executed, trying to dig beneath Fever’s glossy, effervescent surface. However, Karen O’s songwriting can be a blunt tool for such excavation and, by abandoning their former slam-bang dynamics, makes it a fairly boring task as well.
“Way Out” is further proof of YYY’s sonic greatness and lyrical dubiety. As a guitar riff slowly slithers between chords, Karen O drops lines like “Lies and love/ Lies, love/ Bed wetting son of the great heat.” Things only get worse with “Phenomenon”, which is structured like an anthem but with all the energy sapped from it. Instead of thundering drums and veering guitars, the group keeps this track a blank palette for Karen to chant, “Don't fall asleep with the motor on/ She'll make you sweat in the water.” “Mysteries”, lacking both melody and direction, suffers a similar fate as it lumbers around for a few minutes before expiring. While bright spots do come along (like “Dudley” and its interpolation of nursery rhyme melodies), the tracks generally bleed into each other in a flavorless and dull manner, miles away from the inspired sequencing that brought “Maps” and “Y Control” together on the band’s debut.
And then, right when you suspect that the last of the YYY fanboys have ripped their Karen O posters from their walls, comes “Turn Into”. Backed with a simple acoustic guitar strum, the song builds into a grand and guileless epic of unrequited love. By mixing in a little distorted guitar and a short piano interlude, things begin to gel as Karen O sings “Can't say why I kept this from you/ My those quiet eyes become you/ Leave it where it can't remind us/ Turn this all around behind us.” Graceful and heart rendering, “Turn Into” realizes what YYY tried to do with Show Your Bones and again hints at big things to come. This time, let’s hope that they follow through on the follow-up.