Suck on the jugular

YEAH YEAH YEAHS is the stuff of wonder. When it comes to NY punk-indie groups, hum, it's no wonder.

This city is the crossroads of Modernity, the good, the bad, the ugly, the exotic, the everything. NY is brought to memory by FRANK SINATRA and THE RAMONES, and it makes all the more sense.

Building bridges across generations by flipping styles as varied a cab run through NY's numbered streets, YEAH YEAH YEAHS finds the accessible yet rusty, the beauty and the beast, the ambivalence of the streets of NY. Trendsetters and trendsetted, the dilemmas that consummed 3 Rock N'Roll decades are brought to smithereens as Karen O murks, screams, murmurs, gallops throwing darts in lovers' private parts. A girl with attitude or attitude with a girl, you decide.

Nicholas Zinner on guitars is Mark E.Smith (THE FALL) playing for THE STOOGES, an unpretentious, yet creative, body of wrecked lines and curvaceous melodies underneath the garage's wall of sound.

Brian Chase is the drummer. You would notice it anyway, the echoes of blistering hormones sculpting the air every single track. You just can't compare, say, with Meg from THE WHITE STRIPES.

All of them minimalists, YEAH YEAH YEAHS is a sinergy, anarchic collaboration. Their volatile sonic collages are seamless, showing lessons learned from Underground Rap, tempering the ubiquous vanguardism inherited from THE VELVET UNDERGROUND. Jackhammer pop! The big apple, spiced.

And this is just the beginning of the story. 2001 saw the demise of the World Trade Center. YEAH YEAH YEAHS tried to overcompensate with this monument of an EP.

Bang! is an insult, bare-bones Punk played by lumberjacks. Chased by doomy barbarians, Zinner licks the hell out of his rusty cage whereas Karen O's pleas for someone to lick her wounds, just to find the suck-O-rama all the more "sucking" (but sucking "with style"). Frustration brings you stuff, not the stuff imperturbable Karen O intended, but great raunchy numbers like this Louie, Louie grandson. This red-hot is vintage.

Mystery Girl (no, ELVIS is dead) is the album track from an non-album release. Zimmer and Chase corrupt SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES languid anxiety for Karen O to get the ballance right on a thinly veiled performance. Spitting sparse phrases, THE CURE moody melancholy turned into I-don't-care-the-world-is-falling-to-pieces-before-my-eyes-go-get-my-running-shoes, the girl means it, the mistery boys will be toys and the YEAH YEAH YEAHS boys had found ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN's dexterity. Take it by the message that adorns Karen O's neck, which adorns (hum!)this EP's sleeve.

Art Star is the creative apex of this dirty little ditty, a fake Ska rhythm mocking fashionists followed by a Death Metal groar not much distant from Mike Patton's psychotic delivery on FAITH NO MORE's cult number Smaller and Smaller. The girl is a swamp! What are other female singers going to do with their lives after this outrageous performance? I bet they'll call the breeze. This number is Post-modern from the cradle to the grave. It buries all the remaning doubts about YEAH YEAH YEAHS pretty faces not going to the same environments as their knickebocker predecessors THE STROKES!

Miles Away is the outcome of indie despondency (PAVEMENT) finding vulgar dunderhead Hard Rock (SWEET). Somewhere between SUZI QUATRO and PATTI SMITH, Karen O and the guys play reflective. The non-nonsense approach falls short of chaos, but that's their debut, they have the right to indulge themselves.

Finally, Our Times is the fitting swansong for this unvirginated band's debut. Furiously bored, as much as Iggy Stooge circa 1969, Karen O laments the passage of time and celebrates the accuracy of the debauched lovers and passers-by on the streets. She's missing what she hadn't already lost. That's entertainment. That's what YEAH YEAH YEAHS shall be, and I hope will keep their heads ringing on the future (even with the mutant forthcoming releases).

Tracklist:

01 (* * * * *) BANG!
02 (* * * * 1/2) MYSTERY GIRL
03 (* * * * *) ART STAR
04 (* * * *) MILES AWAY
05 (* * * * 1/2) OUR TIMES