{"id":41855,"date":"2010-01-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-19T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/its-blitz\/"},"modified":"2010-01-19T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-19T00:00:00","slug":"its-blitz","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/its-blitz\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s Blitz"},"content":{"rendered":"

Released way back in March, this disc nevertheless slunk its way onto many a Best Of list \u2013 and for good reason. On their latest, power trio Yeah Yeah Yeahs hones the energetic, infectious, and often heartfelt sound that put them on the map with, well, 2007\u2019s hit single \u201cMaps.\u201d Third effort It\u2019s Blitz! <\/i>takes that spirit and blows it towards the rafters, fueled by a heady combination of airy synths, Nick Zinner\u2019s crunching guitars, and Karen O\u2019s caterwauling vocals. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

The album launches out with its most frantic beats, lead single \u201cZero\u201d and \u201cHeads Will Roll.\u201d Both are menacing and urgent, with the latter sporting some disco backbeats and synths that are decidedly rock-y, not the cheesy, artificial dance rhythms often associated with the device. And as Karen O proclaims, \u201cDance \u2018til your dead!\u201d, it seems almost dangerous not to agree. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

What\u2019s eternally interesting about Yeah Yeah Yeahs is the way they approach song structure: there\u2019s nary a traditional chorus to be found here, and every climax feels all the more earned for its delayed buildup. Like the disc\u2019s iconic cover image \u2013 a woman\u2019s hand crushing an egg \u2013 the songs here are explosive and strangely, messily lovely. Amid all the fuzz and disarray, Karen O emerges as one of rock\u2019s most indelible frontwomen, a sparkly songstress anchoring Brian Chase and Nick Zinner\u2019s clamor. Whether she\u2019s breathily exclaiming \u201cYou\u2019re a zero-ohh\u201d or returning to \u201cMaps\u201d\u2019 bare, blood-soaked sentiment on \u201cHysteric,\u201d her vocals are a passionate, if sometimes confounding, call to arms. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

The aforementioned \u201cHysteric\u201d is also one of the album\u2019s standouts, restrained and intimate. Employing their usual skewed syntax (\u201cOther half, strange steps \/ Heels turned black \/ The cinders they splinter\u201d), it comes as a soothingly climactic moment when O finally proclaims, \u201cYou suddenly complete me.\u201d \u201cMaps\u201d will always be a creative touchstone for YYY, but \u201cHysteric\u201d comes close to that glory \u2013 which is saying quite a bit.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The album is a subtler, more downbeat affair than 2006\u2019s raw, gritty Show Your Bones, <\/i>and while this works for the most part, I wouldn\u2019t have minded a few more cuts in the vein of \u201cZero\u201d and \u201cHeads Will Roll,\u201d which are tailor-made for crowds to jam to. Still, the emotional depth and stylish instrumentation of the material here more than stands on its own. \u201cRunaway\u201d and \u201cLittle Shadow\u201d are mellow and dreamy, all wispy instrumentation and O\u2019s cool cooing, while \u201cDull Life\u201d allows Zinner some room to riff to his heart\u2019s content.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

It\u2019s Blitz! <\/i>has hands down the best cover art I\u2019ve seen in a long while, and the album\u2019s no slouch either. Yeah Yeah Yeahs shows here that they\u2019re a group to reckon with; they\u2019re just getting better and better, finessing their sound as they build it bigger.<\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":30209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6990],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-41855","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-yeah-yeah-yeahs","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41855"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}