Sometimes I Think that I'm Bigger than the Sound

Whenever an indie band signs with a major label, there haters come out with sell out chants even before they have heard a note from the album. This holds true for the New York indie darling of two years ago The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. They took the place of The Strokes on top of every pretentious rock fan’s favorite list and even score a minor hit with Maps that Kelly Clarkson promptly stole the hook for her Since U Been Gone mega-hit. This led to The Yeah Yeah Yeahs to sign with Interscope and a new album, Show Your Bones.

The album starts off with a bang with Gold Lion, a boisterous slow rocker that builds until the crescendo of the chorus where Karen O starts screaming her last name incoherently. Throughout the whole album, Nick Zimmer’s guitar and Brian Chase’s drums are as tight as ever, and the extra instruments the band brings in brings extra layers that were missing during their indie days even though the boys still can make two instruments sound like a whole band when they want to. But the boys can keep it low key too as Warrior is a sparse bluesy song that sounds like something that The White Stripes would record.

But I’m not sold as Karen O as an album artist as she should been seen while heard because her energy onstage is her greatest advantage which don’t come across on a disk. She sounds like a combination of every 80’s female singer which is hit or miss at time. It’s a hit on Cheated Hearts that starts off as a New Wave song that morphs into punk decadence by the end. Another problem is that she won’t be winning any songwriting awards soon really likes to repeat herself, over, and over, and over, and over again. This becomes tedious at times. And the chorus of Phenomenon is creepily reminiscent to the LL Cool J song of the same title. But there is something enjoyable she delivers the line “Turn around, you weren’t invited” at the beginning of Honeybear.

Song to Download - Cheated Hearts

Show Your Bones gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.