Collegiate Times

Listening to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs? latest album, ?Show Your Bones? released yesterday on Polydor Records, is sort of like hearing someone read a rock dictionary of the last 20 years aloud. And almost line for line at that.

Fans with even a remedial understanding of the genre?s development over the last two decades can hear the influence of a diverse group of bands like The Cure (?Dudley,? 1980s-ish jangle at its finest), the long-forgotten quartet, Garbage (?Cheated Hearts,? one of the album?s best songs) and even new metal bands like Godsmack (i.e. the breakdown on ?Fancy,? the other one of the album?s better songs).

Indie kids, before you throw this article away along with the prospect of ever buying the album, know that the dictionary the band?s reading from also has a special section on the indie rock half and the band does effectively retain their closeness to the gritty non-mainstream feel they?ve been so known for, particularly in songs like ?Warrior? and ?Gold Lion? where Karen O does her best impression of Neutral Milk Hotel?s seminal vocalist, Jeff Mangum.

This doesn?t sound so bad does it? There are other albums that have successfully paid tribute to various bands of various eras; even albums to come out as recent as this year (namely Belle and Sebastian?s most recent effort, ?The Life Pursuit? which sort of captures a large portion of the last 40 years of pop in 13 songs). Surely the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are capable of doing something like that successfully, right?

Well, yes, but I?m afraid, dear reader, that my cleverly worded metaphor and illuminating description has misled you. Either that, or I?m just a terrible critic who can?t really make up his mind. You be the judge.

Yes, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs? ?Show Your Bones? produces a sound that combines numerous other bands into one sound that is, in fact, very unique and very original to the band itself. What?s more impressive is that they carve this individual voice out in an 11-track album that clocks in at just under 40 minutes.

But consider that they?re reading this dictionary to you and then imagine what it sounds like when a professor reads from a book for 40 minutes in class. Consider that the band, as bombastic as they have been on their older EPs and their 2003 studio-length debut ?Fever to Tell,? reads through the work with clinical restraint and only small splashes of emotion that fall short of their other explosive efforts.

Yeah, that?s where the album goes wrong. That?s what I was getting at.

This is a new direction for the group and while it?s certainly the band?s decision to change their sound in such a fashion, I feel that, while increasing the band?s range of who they can appeal to and inviting discerning listeners to divide along lines of album-preference (i.e. ?The band got it right this time,? or the ever-popular ?They were better before this album,? etc.), it indicates a turn toward the more mellow. In other words, a turn to the more basic and a turn away from the intensity that made the band?s studio debut excellent to begin with.

Gone are the sexually charged lyrics and orgasmic squeals of songs like ?Black Tongue.? Gone are the incendiary, fist-pumping, head-banging breakdowns of songs like ?No no no.? And, worst of all perhaps, gone are the tears and unabashed sentiment of the band?s last single, ?Maps? (one of the best songs to come out of the past decade as far as this critic is concerned).

?Show Your Bones? does include a few spurts of sonic force in sections of ?Fancy? and ?Phenomena.? The most obvious example of the band cutting loose on the album is on ?Mysteries,? but as Pitchfork Media?s Stephen Deusner puts it, ?the moment has a get-it-all-out-now feel.? These moments are only consolation prizes. Thanks for coming out. Better luck next time.

The album has its moments and is by no means all bad, but in the end, it feels like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have put the training wheels back on after riding the big boy?s bike for some time now, and really, it just looks kind of sad.