Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Mosquito

Yeah Yeah Yeahs are on a mission to save rock from its wimpier tendencies. So says front woman Karen O as she laments the passing of alternative music’s awkward squad. “Where has all the charisma and the sexuality and the gnarl gone?” she said recently. Such talk has you steeled for raucous assault. In fact, Mosquito is surprisingly slick, a pop record rather than rock document.

Indeed, the most punk thing about the project is probably the frankly disgusting cover shot of a squealing infant being attacked by a nightmarish mosquito – it really is rather awful. Otherwise, O, guitarist Nick Zimmer and drummer Brian Chase slip into a groove early on and stay there. How much of that is owed to producers Dave Sitek (of TV On The Radio) and LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy is difficult to say. Either way, when the formula clicks, it results in some of Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ most mesmerizing music ever: single ‘Sacrilege’ is mean and minimalist, jet-fuelled by O’s whispered rasp and Zinner’s glistening guitars; ‘Subway’ and ‘Under The Earth’ recall ‘Zero’ and ‘Heads Will Roll’ from 2009’s It’s Blitz. The New York trio may not have lived up to their ambition to save rock and roll, but they have almost surely saved a career which seemed bound for the ‘where are they now?’ zone.