Show Your Bones — Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Interscope
2006
Rating:


Pity the alternative music class of 2001.

Arriving amidst a flurry of buzz and hope that alternative would be returned to its former glory through the garage sounds of 1970s punk, The Strokes and The White Stripes have since become punching bags — the Great Garage Movement fizzled quicker than the Latin Movement of the late 1990s, The Strokes and The White Stripes have sold fewer albums than there were articles written about them and the critical community that should be flagellating its own hyperbole is keen to point the finger elsewhere.

Though a long-player wouldn't be released until 2003, Yeah Yeah Yeahs graduated with The Strokes by releasing a self-titled EP in 2001. Now with its second album "Show Your Bones," YYY is suffering a similar fate — just as once-fawning critics took an ax to The Strokes' underrated "Room on Fire," "Show Your Bones" is being substantially undervalued.

Sure, YYY aren't peddling the same raucous, DIY songs that brought the group attention in the first place. Between the polished sound and a single named for an advertising award, fans have complained Yeah Yeah Yeahs has fully sold out, just like the group was bound to do after signing to Interscope.

Rest assured the Yeah Yeah Yeahs has done no such thing. Refusing to remain in a state of equilibrium, YYY has merely matured, adding meat, muscle and substance to the skeleton of "Fever to Tell."

First single "Gold Lion's" similarity to Love & Rockets' "No New Tale to Tell" seems like a joke, a retaliation against those who don't want Yeah Yeah Yeahs to change. Brian Chase promises "We Will Rock You" with his kick-drum and snare beat, even though the song is initially an acoustic dirge. Nick Zinner switches to electric soon enough, however, and the song explodes following a wail from Karen O. When O sings "Gold lion's gonna tell me where the light is," one wishes she were making a "Wonderfalls" reference. The fact that the title refers to a prize producer Sam "Squeak E. Clean" Spiegel won at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival is one of the album's few disappointments. (Diplo's remix of "Gold Lion," leaked before the original, twists Yeah Yeah Yeahs into even more unfamiliar territory, speeding up the melody and turning it into a fantastic raver.)

"The Sweets" is even more stripped down and wondrous in its slow burn. Bearing a strong resemblance to Michael Pitt's song "Death to Birth" from Gus Van Sant's "Last Days," the song plums emotional depth in acoustic guitar and rim shots until the desperation of wondering "Will we meet again, meet and meet and meet again?" overtakes the band, sending the song into frantic emotion.

Heartache reigns over "Cheated Hearts." An organ, Zinner's guitar and Chase's kick pedal throb through O's lamentation that she has been "Cheated by the opposite of love." The song is beautiful but it also rages once the band lets loose with caterwauls. That kind of righteousness is pervasive in "Phenomena" — a song of Led Zeppelin hugeness and Rage Against the Machine-like riffs — and the jaunt of "Honeybear."

On the bittersweet "Turn Into," Karen O sings, "I know what I know." The depth of what the Yeah Yeah Yeahs know turns out to be a surprise. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs won't be the forgotten garage band; this is a group that knows how to properly expand its sound and could well turn into the one that's revered long after the others have turned to dust.

Posted Friday, December 22, 2006

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