Heads Will Roll
May 27th, 2009
Have I professed my love for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs yet? I think I have, but I’m ready to do it again. They are, quite simply, one of my favorite bands working today. I love every record they’ve put out: the booze-and-sweat-soaked sexy savagery of Fever to Tell, the rock-heavy grandiose intimacy of Show Your Bones, the jagged rawness of Is Is, and the gothic-disco fever that now dominates their latest, It’s Blitz!. I stand behind any of them. Karen O is probably my favorite woman in music; her style, her persona, her lyrics, her antics, her voice all captivate me to no end. Nick Zinner is one of my favorite guitarists, and isn’t given enough credit for the band’s success. Not only can the little man shred big, but he’s a talented photographer, PETA activist and MicroKorgist (apparently) to boot. Brian Chase gets few kudos for his mechanically brilliant drumming, but his prodigious thumping bulwarks the band.
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Below is the YYY’s brand new video for “Heads Will Roll”. It features a breakdancing, backflipping, moonwalking, showboating werewolf. Coupled with the Handsome Furs zombie-inspired video for “I’m Confused” and the Kills’ vampiric turn in their video for “Black Balloon”, B-movie monsters are apparently all the rage, at least with bands I dig. Zinner commences with a cadaverous synth, while Karen (in a tight red ensemble with a puffy plastic outer shell) emphatically proclaims, as only she can, “Off with yer head! / Dance till yer dead! / Heads will roll (x3) / On the floor!”. “Glitter on the wet street!” as Chase hits a snare topped with…glitter. The aqueous imagery runs deep: “The river’s all wet” and “Dripping with alchemy / the shivers stop shimmering”. Zinner has his Stratocaster now and his icy riff trademarks the song. I’ll stop here, but the ending’s pretty good.
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Heads Will Roll:
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I also thought you might like to watch the video for “Zero”. This one opens with the trio in a dressing room playing to their stereotypes and sees the spazzy frontwoman gleefully prancing around NYC, wreaking innocent havoc. The whole thing exemplifies their goofiness, with a silly shopping cart escapade and tons of confetti.
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Zero:
May 27th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
Chris Craig said:
I remember reading an interview with Roger Daltrey about the making of “Who’s Next” and the revolutionary synthesizer work by Pete Townshend on songs like Baba O’reilly and Won’t Get Fooled Again. The quote went something like this, “we have one of the best guitar players in the world, and he’s fucking around with these keyboards.” I kind of feel the same way about Nick Zinner on the new album. The songs are still really good and feel like YYY’s, but somewhere I feel that we might be missing out some extraordinary guitar work. And I would counterpoint that the reason Zinner is so good and overlooked, is the lack of “shredding” in his guitar work. Creativity trumps technicality and speed everytime.
May 28th, 2009 at 7:21 am
LB said:
Ok, ok, he probably doesn’t “shred” as much as other guitarists, I was just trying to find a synonym for “play” (I will maintain, though, that he has some pretty big riffs in his catalog). But I agree that his guitar is overshadowed on this new one. It’s there, but the keys are much bigger. I think the distinction of each record shows his creativity well.
May 28th, 2009 at 9:05 am
The Lady said:
I read in some interview with Karen O. that she didn’t want him to play the guitar at all on the new album. I like It’s Blitzed, to me it’s what the lovechild of Siouxsie Sioux and Gwen Stefani (solo work) would sound like, but I miss the guitar that was on Fever to Tell. In a way, it feels like a Karen O. solo record. I wonder what a Nick Zinner record would sound like.
May 28th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Chris Craig said:
…and The Lady is the winner. Spot on.