Album review: Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ It’s Blitz!
March 24th, 2009 by Cooper Levey-Baker in Arts, Editor's Desk, Music, NewsSign o’ the times: Band records album, band plots April 13 release date, album leaks, band quickly unleashes album digitally, band moves physical release date up to March 31. Such is life for a hot young rock group these days, and even the artists can’t get too worked up about it.
“We wanted to build toward a date, get excitement up and release it so everyone had it at once,” Yeah Yeah Yeahs lead singer Karen O told Pitchfork two weeks ago, discussing the file-sharing-induced rush release of her band’s third LP, It’s Blitz! ”But I guess that doesn’t really happen anymore. We’re still kinda stuck in 2003. I mean, even 2006 was a totally different time to release a record than 2009. It’s insane how quickly everything’s changed.”
The YYYs have, in a sense, been lapped. After all, the band was one of the first Internet-darling indie groups. They earned their early rep thanks to a mere 13 minutes of music on their 2001 self-titled debut EP. (A reputation for hellacious live shows, punctuated by O pouring beer all over herself certainly didn’t hurt.) By the time they released their first full-length, they’d already made the jump to a major label, Interscope, and ran into a distinctly ’00s trend: backlash that emerges even before a band has broken out. (For the most virulent example of this trend yet, please “read” these two Black Kids reviews, both from the same outlet.)
But while the politics of release dates and snarky reviews may have gotten steadily trickier since the YYYs burst into indie consciousness early in the century, mercifully, some things remain the same. Like how, despite having just three members — one singer, one guitarist and one drummer — this band is able to raise one hell of a racket.
The trick this time around, though, is that the chaos comes mostly not from guitarist Nick Zinner’s mangled fretwork, but from spiky synthesizers. It’s Blitz! is awash in pulsating key work, with the riffs that propelled the band’s early art-punk stormers pushed well into the background. So sure, it lacks the gut-punch of Fever to Tell, but the YYYs find all new ways to rouse your attention. Opening track “Zero” (video above) grooves along atop a digitized backbeat, while “Dragon Queen” struts to downright Prince-like funk. Where this band once sounded like it wanted to strangle you, now it sounds like it wants to get in your pants.
And, admittedly, the approach has mixed results. None of the songs here has the instant, raw fuck-yes appeal of “Rockers to Swallow,” a track off the YYYs’ 2007 stopgap EP, Is Is. That release found the band — perhaps relieved of the need to deliver a Statement with a full LP — at its highest peak so far, with a balanced blend of feedback-drenched rancor and the mannered songwriting they displayed on their second album, Show Your Bones.
Still, don’t expect backlash here. It’s Blitz! is strong enough to withstand the twin assault of illegal downloading and narrow Internet attention spans. Although the Yeah Yeah Yeahs may feel behind the times, you just get the feeling that this band might actually obtain what has so far eluded any number of hype-propelled alt-rock bands this decade: a career.
March 31st, 2009 at 8:10 am
[...] clearing my conscience, I will admit to having stolen the following things in the past few weeks: music, tennis balls and time (from my overlords at Creative Loafing). I beg forgiveness. Bookmark [...]
May 20th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
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