Yeah Yeah Yeahs ‘It’s Blitz’

Yeah Yeah Yeahs burst into my consciousness when the fractured energy of Bang first filled the Xfm airwaves eight years ago. An iconic lead singer with an electrifying presence, a drummer and guitarist who clearly understood that art rock dynamics and sonic experimentation weren’t the enemy of catchy songs, this was a band that couldn’t fail to excite. Their full length debut Fever To Tell certainly delivered on all the promise.

However, 2006’s Show Your Bones met with a cool response from some quarters, Pitchfork saying it “sounds guarded, with very little danger and too few moments of real urgency” and The Guardian claiming “the band are still struggling to raise their game beyond White Stripes-goth-lite”. If casual fans struggled with the direction of that album, it’ll be interesting to see what they make of It’s Blitz!.

Early reports revealed that production was going to be shared between long time knob twiddler David Sitek and the man who helmed 2007’s Is Is EP, Nick Launay. Given the band’s acknowledgement that Launay’s work with Public Image Limited was why they wanted to work with him in the first place, along with Nick Zinner’s recently declared love for vintage synths, it was clear that the album was going to take at least some of its cues from the early 80s. Sure, first tune out of the traps Zero certainly hit everyone in the chest, driven along by squelching synth/heavily effected rumbling guitar line, its dynamic structure and feel coming across like the mutant dancefloor cousin of Muse’s Map Of The Problematique, but once you get past that first song those influences come thick and fast.

Heads Will Roll shamelessly ‘borrows’ from PiL’s This Is Not A Love Song; Skeleton Me is the missing track from OMD’s Architecture And Morality (it even has a faux martial /highland pipers bit like in Maid Of Orleans); while the scratchy guitars and syncopated bassline of Dragon Queen funks along nicely. All of a sudden Zero starts to look like the band throwing everyone a bit of a curveball.

Elsewhere, the spirit of Fever To Tell can be felt on Dull Life and Shame And Fortune, the former the only track on the album that comes close to matching the tempo of Zero, the latter featuring some serious fuzz and a yelping vocals. Those looking for this album’s Maps or Cheating Hearts should check out Runaway. With a simple piano intro, some great power ballad drumming, ebowed guitar, tortured strings and synths that could have been lifted straight off Duran Duran’s first album (check out To The Shore), it features one of Karen O’s most melancholy lyrics “I was feeling sad / can’t help looking back / want you to stay / want you to be my prize”. Easily their best chance for a massive hit single.

When the band announced the title of the album some hoped this was going to be their hardest record yet, few would have imagined it likely they might be referencing the club that birthed the new romantic movement. While I’d still like to hear an album that is 10 different versions of Machine, to these ears Its Blitz! is the sound of the band appropriating the best bits of a much maligned era and effortlessly creating something that sounds new and vital. No mean trick, but it’ll be interesting to see if everyone else is convinced.