When New York indie hipsters Yeah Yeah Yeahs burst onto the global music scene in 2001, their energy and quirkiness immediately pigeonholed them as a trendy flavour of the month. But with over a decade behind them and their fourth full-length album Mosquito in the bag, Karen O and her band of geekish rockers are still breaking new ground.
Mosquito is an album that captures what made Yeah Yeah Yeahs so exciting on their self-titled debut EP in 2001. They have an uncanny ability to seamlessly combine the urgent sensibility of early Stooges records in songs like ‘Area 52’, with the sensitive, melancholic songwriting of tracks like ‘Subway’ and ‘Always’.
Beneath the album’s sound is a clear nod towards the New York dance-punk scene of the late-70s, with tracks like ‘Slave’ and ‘Mosquito’ drawing from the same well as the achingly underrated ESG – this influence being clearly bolstered by the production talents of LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, and Dave Sitek of TV On The Radio.
Mosquito is a very good album that demonstrates how with each new release, Yeah Yeah Yeahs have made a commitment to evolving their sound in ways that make them still as arresting as they were in 2001.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs official.