(t5!) Heroes Of The Zeroes Albums: #29: Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz! (2009)

It’s 2010 now and the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s debut Fever To Tell seems really far away, when arithmetically it’s only seven years. Listening to their newest long-player released last year, It’s Blitz!, confirms its far-away-ness. Fever To Tell made a willful effort to remain raw, staying true to their description by sounding like the songs are being put together in their New York garages. While that debut made them seem like one of the originators of the dirty-jean rock revival of the early-2000’s—even championing the smeary Karen O as a romanticized heroine of the whole movement—it’s It’s Blitz! where we hear them hone their craft.

It’s Blitz! sounds more processed than any of their past work; polished keyboards, immaculate synths, and specific drum machines are the tools used to upgrade their brand as they put aside the coarse guitars and volatile aggression. The kingly “Heads Will Roll” is evidence that the trio they not only listen to The Stooges and Siouxsie And The Banshee, they also fancy a little New Order now and then. The motivated single “Zero” is joyful and self-assured with the adamant single synth note bashing, electronic beats, and Karen O’s instruction to “get the leather on”.

It’s as if O and the band realized before It’s Blitz! was put together that she sounded best in “Maps” than in any other track they’ve performed, because she sounds much less affected here. In most of these tracks, she sounds pure and susceptible to emotional harm, just like in “Maps”. The reverie electronics in “Soft Shock” compliment her high-octave cooing spotlessly. Ballad “Hysteric” is proof that they’ve mastered the style. Closer “Little Shadow” sounds eerily as precious as a Stars song, I half expected her to say “I am Karen, and this is my heart” by the time the organ and Brian Chase’s tom-packed drumming subsides.

Some of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs fans may not prefer It’s Blitz! as much as I do, I actually prefer it more than any album released in 2009. The problem is that this is an album of control and coherence when some fans tuned in for the menace, instability, and grit, “Maps” being the anomaly of the bunch. But I loved “Maps”, I loved the control and the coherence, so when I heard this third album from Yeah Yeah Yeahs, it comes to no surprise that I love it too. I also this album as a sign of growth and maturity—Fever To Tell is an album that belongs to a garage-rock campaign, but It’s Blitz! is an album that belongs to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Heading into the tens, I’m optimistic about what brilliance the Yeah Yeah Yeahs grows into, even if it takes another seven years to get there.