Yeah Yeah Yeahs: It’s Blitz!

By: Dennis Cook

One doesn’t want to be unkind but this is a snore. Three albums in and a band that went from being an unknown to an Every-Critic’s shorthand for modern rock with breakneck speed seems to have already lost the script. Mostly ditching the guitar heavy sound of their earlier work, It’s Blitz! (released March 31 on Interscope) lounges inside throbbing synths and stiff electronic percussion. It’s fine sexy background music but, despite a stated desire to conjure “dripping wet alchemy,” this mainly sounds like tired, post Pet Shop Boys/Madonna disco with Lewis Carroll’s mad queen barking, “Off, off, off with your head/ Dance, dance, dance till you’re dead.”

Problem is they need to inspire you to dance and this just made me want to listen to New Order to hear this same milieu handled better. The unruly bits, the punk tatters and Patti Smith-ian bloodlust, were always what made the Yeah Yeah Yeahs interesting; sand those aspects away and you reveal a lyrically thin band that’s treading pretty safe water. It’s bathtub warm and they fire off the occasional zinger or nifty riff but what predominates is that aforementioned ’90s club vibe wedded to the overwrought bits of Sinead O’Connor (“Skeletons” is especially egregious in this regard, full of obvious imagery and listless, whooshing keys). For really switched-on modern rock, one is far better off spending time with The New Up, CSS and Hot Chip – all of whom are trying much harder to reinvent the wheel than this supposed touchstone act. And it’s worth noting that the acoustic versions of four tracks on the expanded edition do little more than highlight the weak songwriting and lazy playing here.

No doubt, Karen O is one of the finest new singers to emerge in ages but one thinks she’d be better served pouring that voice into more worthwhile endeavors, say a duet album with MMJ’s Jim James or perhaps an all Dylan solo album given her standout rendition of “Highway 61 Revisited” on the I’m Not There soundtrack. Here, she’s the sole bright light in an otherwise dim collection.

JamBase | Hungover
Go See Live Music!