Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Fever to Tell” (2004)
I’ve been aware of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and their singer Karen O for a
while, but I’ve not investigated much of what they do outside of what I
ran into on music tv.
Listening to this album, while I don’t know if they deserve every scrap
of hype they’ve received, I can certainly see the appeal. The band play
wild arty punk rock with drums, guitar (no bass as was the style at the
time) and Karen O’s wild vocals that run the gamut from coy croons to
hot-blooded yelps.
O and guitarist Nick Zinner had originally put together an acoustic duo
but decided to form a noisy avant punk band like the ones O had
experienced via art school. They enlisted an acquaintance of O’s,
Brian Chase on drums who was studying jazz (usually a good skill-set on a
drummer). They quickly built up a ‘buzz’ and did tours with
hot-tickets the Strokes and the White Stripes and landed a spot at the
SXSW festival.
The band opted to fund their debut recording themselves and enlisted
Dave Sitek from the often brilliant TV on the Radio to produce the
album.
In amongst the art punk stylings there is enough variety to keep things ticking along with some catchier parts and a song like "Man" which has an almost dangerous bluesy slant. “Maps”
offers up a mellower, more melodic reprieve from the maelstrom, as does
the dreamy closing track “Modern Romance” and the subsequent ‘secret
track’
The music is complemented by the band's strong visual, from their
arresting album cover, to O’s on-stage fashion which mixes punk, catwalk
and fabulous.
