YEAH YEAH YEAHS
Show Your Bones
(Interscope)
· Quasi balladeers redux – the queen of modern rock, Karen O , returns with a surprisingly graceful and effortless release.
What’s at first most striking about the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Show Your Bones is not only how light it sounds, but how heavy it actually is. Worlds away from their most popular song "Bang’s" break-out chorus sing-along "as a fuck son / you suck." Show Your Bones is the work of an actual rock ’n’ roll band no longer simply interested in staying on the bleeding edge of hipsterdom, but with creating something that lasts longer than the zeitgeist’s attention span.
Playing at around 75 per cent of the frenzied pace upon which they built their reputation, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have taken a move towards acoustic guitar-driven mid-tempo rock – when the big guitars come in, they appear as a wall of controlled noise shredding everything else around them. These aren’t ballads in the traditional sense, but in comparison to what’s come before, Show Your Bones very nearly comes off as a "Maps"-minded collection of lovelorn regrets and treatises on the pressures of stardom. Karen O and the boys aren’t breaking any new ground here (check Dudley’s near-complete pillage of "Hush Little Baby," for one of the most glaring examples), but Show Your Bones occasionally manages to jump the sophomore album hurdle with relative grace and effortlessness.
The last time Courtney Love crossed our musical radar, she sounded merely like an imitation of The Distillers (who really aren’t much but Hole knock-offs with new tattoos and a dyed-hair Karen O fixation), while PJ Harvey did her best Karen O impression on Uh Huh Her, but couldn’t quite keep her teeth bared for an entire record. Despite how little the Yeah Yeah Yeahs may do for the progression of rock, somehow their ability to replicate is as inspiring as the most original track.
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