UK pressing includes one bonus track, 'De Ja Vu'. Show Your Bones is what happens when you put your finger in a light socket. Maybe there is some of that electric current flowing through the tracks of our album illuminating us from the inside out for you to laugh at and cry to or fry to. Features the single 'Gold Lion'. They will also be headling this years Coachella Music Festival. Universal. 2006.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Show Your Bones
[Interscope; 2006]
Rating: 6.8
It's impossible not to hear the ghost of Fever to Tell on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' follow-up, Show Your Bones. With its 2003 full-length debut, the Brooklyn-based trio confidently staked out diverse territory-- from the meltdown-rock of "Pin" to the march of "Black Tongue" to the tenderly skewed balladry of "Maps"-- and played those extremes against each other, so that each became even more extreme in contrast. The result was a complex sound that was simultaneously inviting and confrontational, and it made Fever to Tell this decade's gold standard for transcending indie hype. But while it makes sense for the YYYs to play off that earlier sound here, their new album sounds like only one side of a multifaceted band.
For Bones, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs recruited producer Squeak E. Clean, who fits these songs with an array of bells and whistles-- not to mention sirens, organs, programmed beats, acoustic guitars, rattling percussion, keyboards, and various studio effects. Most of it, unfortunately, simply seems unnecessary or excessive. In fact, more often than not, these sonic geegaws detract from the band's intensity, compartmentalizing the record's explosive moments from the songs themselves.
Nick Zinner's guitar sounds smaller and less commanding here, and Karen O has toned down her presence considerably, rarely relying on the vocal tics that once seemed the equivalent of her famously ragtag glam fashion. Even when she unleashes that hellfire growl in "Fancy", it's buried so far in the mix that it's indistinguishable from the band's racket. Brian Chase's drum work remains confoundingly intricate, but seems strangely restrained nonetheless. The percussion should punish your eardrums when he pounds out the opening of "Fancy"; instead it sounds polite, like he's clearing his throat to get your attention. When the Yeah Yeah Yeahs finally do cut loose at the frenzied end of the Strokes-fest "Mysteries", the moment has a get-it-all-out-now feel.
These are growing pains for a band that has done a lot of maturing since Fever to Tell made them semistars. This newfound wisdom has its benefits, chief among them a confessional tone to the songwriting that effectively blurs the distinctions between Karen O and Karen Orzalek. Show Your Bones is a post-fame album, with many songs written from the specific perspective of a touring musician. "Warrior" begins as an acoustic ballad much like the previous album's "Modern Romance", but builds linearly to an intense finish as Karen O laments, "Travel away, travel it all away/ The road's gonna end on me." She never lapses into self-pity, though, mainly because the attraction of an excited audience proves as strong as the pull of a stable, homebound life. First single "Gold Lion" sounds like a mission statement: "We'll build a fire in your eyes."
For its faults, howeveer, Show Your Bones contains some genuinely disarming moments that reveal the band's considerable emotional and sonic force. Despite its similarity to Love and Rockets' "No New Tale to Tell", "Gold Lion" unleashes a booming wordless chorus and a high-flying guitar riff from Zinner. On "Way Out"-- perhaps the album's most effectively dramatic track-- O infuses her vocals with a palpable emotional fatigue, sounding desperate to reconnect with the world even as she slowly sinks into numbness: "It's around me so tight!"
Still, on Show Your Bones the Yeah Yeah Yeahs occupy only one corner of the territory they claimed on Fever, walking confidently in their own footsteps but without claiming any new ground. If Fever had a skuzzy film of sweat and alcohol that sounded persuasively real, with songs that could have been cobbled together from scraps found in garbage bins and dumpsters, unmade beds and mess-strewn rooms, Bones possesses a too-clean sound and a songwriterly approach that seems more redolent of the studio than the stage. These refinements, which prove merely cosmetic, sap their sound of its brutal spontaneity and mute the band members' idiosyncrasies, and as a result, the album sounds guarded, with very little danger and too few moments of real urgency.
-Stephen M. Deusner, March 27, 2006
Review by Heather Phares
As explosive as they seem on the surface, Yeah Yeah Yeahs are also an ambitious, thoughtful band that keeps pushing the boundaries of their music. They moved from the rawness of their early EPs to the polished art-punk of their first full-length in just over two years, and this drive to keep topping themselves is what led to breakthroughs like Fever to Tell's gorgeous ballad, and hit single, "Maps." After taking three years to follow up Fever to Tell, and scrapping many of the songs that they came up with while on tour supporting that album, Yeah Yeah Yeahs returned with Show Your Bones, the yin to their debut album's yang. While Fever to Tell and "Maps" dealt with falling in love (and being more than a little freaked out about it), Show Your Bones is a breakup album. It's funny -- if Yeah Yeah Yeahs had made this album earlier in their career, Karen O's cutting lyrics and Nick Zinner's choppy guitars would've sliced the poor ex to pieces; after all, on "Bang," from their self-titled debut EP, they (hilariously) wrote off a lame one-night stand with "as a f*ck, son, you sucked." Show Your Bones, however, tries to go much deeper than that, with underwhelming results. It's only natural that using heartbreak as inspiration would lead to brooding, reflective songs, but the fiery, independent spirit that made Yeah Yeah Yeahs so great initially is drained out of this album. Even on the rockers, Show Your Bones is too subdued, restrained, and overthought. The cryptic lead single "Gold Lion" (which sounds like a mash-up of Love and Rockets' "No New Tale to Tell" and Siouxsie and the Banshees' "Peek a Boo") is vague and a little plodding; though it eventually worms its way into listeners' heads, it's surprisingly unfocused, compared to Yeah Yeah Yeahs' previous singles. "Phenomena," with its stomping riffs and fazer-like synths, is a more natural progression from the Fever to Tell style, but it still ends up feeling more indulgent than inventive. Aptly enough for the kind of album it is, Show Your Bones' softer songs are some of its strongest: "Dudley" sounds a little bit like Sonic Youth covering the nursery rhyme "Hush, Little Baby," while "Cheated Hearts" is a big, rousing ballad in the vein of "Maps." And, as on Fever to Tell, the band loosens up as Show Your Bones unfolds, coming up with some interesting songs in the process. "Mysteries" is a jealous cowpunk number that sounds tossed-off, but has more bite and fun in it than the rest of the album. On "Turn Into," the band takes this twangy sound and turns it sweet, resulting in one of their best songs yet. Unfortunately, though, too much of Show Your Bones just isn't that interesting, even if it was born from genuine heartache instead of sass and attitude. Actually, sass and attitude sound like the perfect antidote to heartache -- and, quite possibly, what ails Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
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