Pulling Away the Skin
It's less Yeah Yeah Yeah, more OK OK OK. What was once full speed ahead is now tempered by a noticeable, but in hindsight, predictable reluctance. Check the trajectory...
Yeah Yeah Yeahs debut EP, known to many as the Bang EP, was like a tongue in the ear, an ass in the face, a full-on roundhouse kick to the groin. "As a fuck/Son, you suck" Karen O. announced in a lo-fi swagger on "Bang," unheard since the days when kids who didn't know any better wore paper clips through their tongues. That, plus the stunning juxtaposition on the track "Art Star" of the ghoulish howl with the bubblegum smacking "do do do" refrain. Even the plaintive closer "Our Time" had bite, exclaiming, "It's the year to be hated."
The inessential mini-EP Machine followed, throwing three songs onto the catalogue, but basically adding nothing new, or at least compelling. The title track, with its agonized plea of "Machine/ Machine / I waste it for you" still portrayed Karen O. in her gutter glam diva best.
Stepping onto the mainstream radar with its first full-length Fever to Tell in 2003, it was YYYs guitarist Nick Zinner who set the tone for the band's mature, ready for the big stage sound. Beginning from the pulsar-toned, spiraling guitar greeting, the man with the Seussian-do laid down the riffs shredded as carefully as Karen O.'s bedazzled, designer concert wear. From the Jon Spencer imitation of "Date with the Night" to the serrated alarm blares of "Black Tongue" to the jaunty jangle of "Pin," the artful instrumentation was the meat to Karen's outlandish beer guzzling, irreverent lyrics and cartoonish sexiness. Zinner and Karen, typically opposing sine waves, complemented one another perfectly on the surprising hit "Maps," where the guitar's reverbed echo added layer after gauzy layer to the story of broken hearts and parted ways. Yet with every dip and dive, the one hallmark of Fever was its swagger and the thrill of its unabashed confidence.
The thrill is gone. As if the last four years were all pretense, YYYs' new record, Show Your Bones does just that. It takes a rusty knife to the epidermis, dermis, fat and muscle to reveal all that lies within. Karen's shed the Siouxsie Sioux-meets-Twisted Sister look for a sort of Asian rickshaw driver appearance. Along with the other two members, she pulls the weight of separated collaborators, fractured relationships. As Karen intones on the acoustic-clean "Way Out": "The shit is running/And it runs deep."
This isn't the balls-out YYYs of yesteryear-and the songs are all the proof you need. Sure, it's less arty, more pop-thanks to the band acquiring producer Squeak E. Clean (brother of former Karen O. beau Spike Jonze) and a Pro Tools setup-but it's a great deal more varied and full. Drummer Brian Chase shows up from time to time, his cymbal work and beat-keeping controlling much more of the ambiance than Zinner's guitar would previously allow. It's a sound more endemic of the desert air in L.A., where Karen now resides, sharing the same alternately spare and lush ambiance of fellow Angelinos Autolux.
Stylistically, using "Maps" as permission to venture out of art-punk, YYYs resemble everything from the alt-country breeze of Rilo Kiley ("Turn Into") to the danceable fun of Metric ("Honeybear") to No Doubt's "Don't Speak"-era interband commentary ("Dudley"). But there's plenty moments that make it clear this is Yeah Yeah Yeahs. For one, Karen, while somewhat subdued on the several acoustic and balladeering numbers, can't keep the Karen of the past down. She lets out a guttural howl on "Fancy" to remind you that this is a progression, not a total change of tack. Zinner, for his part, isn't totally stifled. He gets to experiment more with effects, conjuring sounds that evoke a spectrum connecting flying dagger stabs to swirling pools of oil.
Moving forward as a bicoastal band (Zinner and Chase still live in Brooklyn), Yeah Yeah Yeahs prove on Show Your Bones that while distance keeps them apart, their music kinship remains tight. And while everything under the skin isn't pretty-as this at-times-uneven album can be-after focusing for a little, it makes sense and it works. In fact, as a whole, it succeeds. A softer Yeah Yeah Yeahs? After revisiting "Our Time," "Maps" and Fever's "Modern Romance," it seems the indications were there the whole time.