ARTIST: Yeah Yeah Yeahs
TITLE: It’s Blitz!
RELEASE DATE: April 14, 2009
WEB DEBUT: Feb. 23, 2009
ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: If your first sight of Karen O was her pouring beer all over her hipster-trash outfit in a frantic, sweaty Brownie’s, you might have been surprised when the band’s first album was released and the sweet, melodic, vulnerable “Maps” became a legitimate hit. To a certain degree, this clearly took the Yeah Yeah Yeahs by surprise, too; their follow-up, Show Your Bones, was a good album, but seemed to lack a consistent sound, largely shying away from the noisy punk songs of the debut to reach toward “Maps,” but never quite getting there. (Though, you know, can’t fuck with “Cheated Hearts.”) Having been conceived at least in part as a jokey lark (without drummer Brian Chase, Karen O and Nick Zinner were known as “Unitard”), and consisting of only two instruments, they clearly needed to make something of a breakthrough if they were going to continue as a viable entity.
And now, they have. When Spin says that Nick Zinner is ditching his guitar for synths, this is both kind of untrue and more true than it seems. There’s still a lot of guitar on It’s Blitz, and it’s not necessarily true that all the synth sounds were produced by keyboards. But it is indicative of the record’s direction, which takes them closer to the club and to modern nightlife than they’ve been before. In retrospect, it seems kind of obvious to turn to Blondie when you’re trying to turn your female-fronted punky band into something more expansive, but it wasn’t at the time, and the band makes the inspiration work for them wonderfully. On first blush, none of the ballads quite match up to “Maps” (though “Skeletons” certainly makes a play for it), but the feeling of bittersweet, wistful yearning that lies at that song’s heart informs almost all the numbers here, and the disco-tinged numbers benefit mightily from it. (This seems to be part of a welcome trend; the initial stages of the disco revival seemed to want to meld disco’s energy to a certain aggression, but more recent incarnations seem to have recaptured the romanticism that made the genre human and mature.) Ultimately, the album seems to be trying to serve as some sort of capstone project for the decade, bringing in garage rock, ’80s revivalism, disco, and quiet urbanism.
THE BEST TRACK: Like Franz Ferdinand’s recent album, It’s Blitz! is sort of paced like a night out, so your view of the “best” track depends whether you prefer the more energetic first half or the more mellow second. “Soft Shock” perfectly captures the feeling of running around a city at night, but it’s hard not to be drawn toward the nearly perfect “Hysteric” near the end of the album, which maybe, possibly, does do “Maps” again, but instead of the frustrated, anxious worry of that earlier song, it brings in something closer to rapture, floating a love song in impossibly warm textures.
@2ironic4u: the last week of leaks has been INSANE.
wow why all the YYYs hate? I feel like I’ve been on the opposite trajectory as everyone else - I didn’t like them when they came out (aside from MAPS), but show your bones really grew on me. I’m really excited for this album now.
@tim_loves_cats: maybe the “second half” represents, like, the 4am-7am part of the night, or something. The first half could be from 1am to 4am, which is when you would be going out, if you aren’t weak.
I don’t know what a Be Your Own Pet is, but they sound esteemed and sincere.
@chachwitablog: i’m with you on that trajectory.
@Nunya B: Show Your Bones is a perfect example of a fine follow-up to a critical debut that sold only half as much and now gets dismissed as “Yeah, what were we thinking with that one? This NEW one is really the best thing we’ve done” commentary and reviews.
@chachwitablog: Everyone I know that likes this band is fast asleep by 1 am. And you forgot the 10-1 segment, the most important part of the night out. This is when the good times are organized and the night takes shape, if you just show up at 1 everyone knows you’re some dickhead who doesn’t have any friends and shows up when everyone’s drunk already so they don’t have to have any real conversations.
@OokieDookie: um, what? Any “esteem” BYOP had went out the window the second they took the stage. I loved that band’s first album and excitedly went to see them play. They SUCKED. All of the precision playing on the record was obviously some kind of sleight of hand, as the band sounded like ass. Jemina was cool, though.
@OokieDookie: um, what? Any “esteem” BYOP had went out the window the second they took the stage. I loved that band’s first album and excitedly went to see them play. They SUCKED. All of the precision playing on the record was obviously some kind of sleight of hand, as the band sounded like ass. Jemina was cool, though.
@Maura Johnston: what else has leaked this week? Inquiring minds would like to know!
@Maura Johnston: what else has leaked this week? Inquiring minds would like to know!
@T’Challa: u2, kelly, and yyys. i’d say that’s a pretty big trio.
@Maura Johnston: Agreed! I’m off to find that Kelly Clarkson now…
@Maura Johnston: Agreed! I’m off to find that Kelly Clarkson now…
And for the record, this album (”It’s Blitz!”) is truly stunning. The one-two kiss of “Soft Shock” and “Skeletons” is gorgeous, and “Hysteric” gives me “the feeling” big-time.
I KNEW they could do it!! Bless you, YYYs! Counting the days until Coachella, my babies…
And for the record, this album (”It’s Blitz!”) is truly stunning. The one-two kiss of “Soft Shock” and “Skeletons” is gorgeous, and “Hysteric” gives me “the feeling” big-time.
I KNEW they could do it!! Bless you, YYYs! Counting the days until Coachella, my babies…
SHOW YOUR BONES is definitely underrated …
@OokieDookie: I’ve never gotten sincerity from Be Your Own Pet. All I ever got was fake-y kids playacting at rock and roll with execrable lyrics and pedantic songs. But I know nobody else around here agrees.
@T’Challa: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Sincerity is one thing, but there’s something to be said for competence. This is why we are stuck with the Vivian Girls and Coathangers right now, and I’m not even feeling sincerity from them.
Nice to hear — I’ve been fairly indifferent to them all this time (even the vaunted “Maps” just made me think of the Pixies’ “Gigantic” more than anything else — think it had to do with the guitar part) but “Zero” is crackerjack. There have been a LOT of bands these past ten years that made initial splashes that bugged the hell out of me or let me cold that all stepped up over time — Blonde Redhead, M83, these guys, to a lesser extent the Electric Six and TV on the Radio…
Wow, leaked nearly 2 months out? Tough break for those guys (and girl).
Paced like a night out? Who’s night out goes mellow in the second half? Sounds like a pretty weak time to me.
I would like them more if they stopped claiming the No Wave schtick and started acknowledging that they were one of the leaders of the NYC navel-gavers. It would have helped them out years ago, as their music is actually pretty good when you ignore their conceit. Funny how Be Your Own Pet were compared to them in 2006, then surpassed them in esteem so enormously just two years later. I guess that’s what a little sincerity can do.
Show Your Bones wasn’t as awful as everyone wants to remember it was, though. The melodic, jangly songs toward the end (”Turn Into” and “Dudley”) were excellent.
Off to see what this is all about, then.
I’m sure my 16 year old cousin will love this….along with every other big “indie” release this year. Yawn.