Innocent bystanders can barely speak for shock, mother’s cling to their children lest they be corrupted by its malevolent force, the faces of once puritan fanatics are red raw from nights spent howling into the darkness, the headline reads: “Yeah Yeah Yeah’s go disco”... anyone would have thought it was the end of the world. Maybe the illustrious music critic collective have spent the majority of 2009 thus far trying to find the African influences in Franz Ferdinand’s ‘Tonight’ but the whirlwind of consternation that New York’s most musically talented band would chuck some synths into their glam-punk mix took me by surprise.
For the record, ‘It’s Blitz!’ does represent something of a departure for Karen & Co. Indeed for a large chunk of the album resident guitar hero Nick Zinner ditches the axe in favour of a chorus of orchestral electronics. A ‘switch of instruments’ tagline, doesn’t really give a fair representation of the album though. The real pink elephant in the room on the YYY’s third LP is the lack of the in-your-face immediacy that characterised the best moments of previous efforts ‘Fever To Tell’ and ‘Show Your Bones’. Even on lead single ‘Zero’, the B-movie pastiche of primal riffs and carnal front woman is replaced by a pulsating rhythm, slowing building into a glorious rebel-rousing anthem. It’s the YYY’s Jim, but not as we know them.
Not that we ever had any need to be worried of course. With a production team of Nick Launay (Arcade Fire, Talking Heads, PiL), along with TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek behind the mixing desk, one really couldn’t imagine a safer pair of dab hands to bring the band’s art pretensions to the foreground whilst leaving the ‘rawk’ to skulk around in the shadows. One noticeable result of this sparser arrangement is the (further) allocation of centre stage to Karen O. Whereby once O could writhe around in a wall of Ramones-esque chaos courtesy of Zinner, drawing a dubious line between style and substance, the spotlight that ‘It’s Blitz!’ brings can’t be simply offset by a blood curdling scream.
Dutifully she rises to the occasion, portraying a softer more sentimental side previously only seen on the likes of ‘Maps’ and ‘Cheated Hearts’. Though never knowingly subtle, O can at least deliver grand proclamations with ironic understatement such as that of ‘Flow sweetly hang heavy / You suddenly complete me’ on album highlight ‘Hysteric’. Equally, the aptly titled ‘Soft Shock’ proves true to its promise of a skuzzed up lullaby, smugly drifting along on a wave throbbing snyth and tremolo guitars without ever feeling the need to burst out into a flash of bedlam.
As such, ‘It’s Blitz!’ is a record that never truly announces itself. Even its most dance floor friendly moments ‘Heads Will Roll’ and ‘Dragon Queen’ gently creep up on you. First with a foot stomp, then a careless swaying of the arms, before culminating in a full on head bopping frenzy. It’s this pervasive sense of quiet confidence that makes the LP so impressive. By ripping up their own copy book in order to start again the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s have made their best album to date. Just don’t mention that ‘D’ word to anyone.
8/10
No comments:
Post a Comment