My first piece of work - Yeah Yeah Yeah's new album review

This is my first album review. I'll be submiting this to my school's newspaper and it will hopefully appear in next week's edition (not this week due to spring break).

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Yeah Yeah Yeahs
It's Blitz! [2009]


You shouldn’t tell a dentist to have a try at heart surgery, likewise, you shouldn’t tell Nick Zinner to drop the whole axe business and focus on the keys. Karen O may have missed the memo on this one as it was reported that for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs third full length album, It’s Blitz!, Zinner’s brilliant guitar work would be largely substituted for the bleeps and bloops of synthesizers.

It’s Blitz! Opens with lead single “Zero,” an outcast’s anthem that instantly hits you with the new sound of the Y’s then is further reinforced by second track’s haunting synth lead in “Heads Will Roll.” Heavy on the electric dance feel and complete with neon lit lyrics born out of a night in the club (“Glitter on the wet streets/Silver over everything/You’re all chrome”), these songs are what the Blitz is in reference to. Just as we think the whole album will be in the same vain, miss O gets all forlorn on us and introduces us to the band channeling “Maps 2.0” only without the radio ready chorus’. A glimmer of the bands vintage sound is found when back to back slow crooners give way to the album’s only true rocker in “Dull Life.” The track bobs around with the fervor of the bands first two albums when Karen O goes tit for tat in the chorus with Zinner’s spiky guitar line. Another rocker (in context) is found in “Shame and Fortune” but fails to go anywhere with its plodding build up of buzzing sound. Elsewhere, TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe’s guest vocals on “Dragon Queen” seem all too fitting for the funky guitar and dripping with sex attitude of the all out groove that’s a page straight out of TVotR’s book.

Here’s the crux of the issue with It’s Blitz!: half of the albums 10 tracks are heartbroken ballads and the other half don’t have enough spunk to offset them. Gone are the screeching and panting of Karen O’s vocal allure and previously mentioned guitar work from Mr. Zinner and instead we get a bevy of I-was-feeling-sad numbers (seriously, “I was feeling sad,” the first line of “Runaway”.) Karen O’s front woman personality and mystique are still present, I don’t know if they can ever not be, but we’ve come to expect that from one of rocks leading ladies. It’s Blitz! should not have sounded like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs other two albums, nobody likes a great band staying stagnant; it just should have sounded more in general.


-Erik Gavilanes




Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGxBTsmuRIk

First things first

I'm Erik and this is my first blog. I have recently taken to writing for my school's newspaper so I'll be posting anything I write for them here which will include album reviews, concert reviews, and anything else I see fit.

I want hundreds of people to follow this blog but I'll gladly settle for one.