Yeah Yeah Yeahs -- Mosquito

Second listen and "Slave" is alright. Still feels like sketches in echo. "Area 52" is no "Art Star" like O compares in the youtube preview, definitely belongs more on the Garbage Pail Kids soundtrack.

So yeah, finally gave this a listen and I can see what people mean when they say it sounds like a bunch of demos... I definitely don't think it sounds as good as It's Blitz! does, and there's one or two songs here that seem to meander a little without doing much of anything on first listen. I'll certainly be giving it a few more listens before I decide whether I feel this is any good or not, but I don't think it's going to mean as much to me as their previous album did no matter how much or little it grows on me.

listening to official version

it really does sound like it was recorded in a drainpipe :(

Halfway through and I'm liking this so far. I'm not sure I really want to hear a whole album of this murky echo chamber stuff, but it's an interesting direction for them.

from the cover to the dr octagon guest spot, this album is extremely... 90s

It's so unbelievably late 90s it sounds like the band were wearing combat trousers when they recorded it.

'Area 51' is pretty great actually.

it's blitz was already hella 90s

Meh, I've given this album another go this morning and I just really couldn't be bothered with it. Found myself wanting to turn it off and listen to 'Dragon Queen' instead.

huh i wasn't expecting a peaking lights record

this isn't that bad but the cover is so disgusting i will never buy a physical copy

isn't "Phenomenon" used in a car commercial or something?

Cadillac baby!

I am bummed everyone is hating on this, now I don't even want to hear it. Granted the cover was off-putting enough, and I didn't really like Sacrilege so... hopes dashed I guess

it's not bad so far, just kind of a snooze. "slave" is good.

Yeah I am bummed too. I just got it this morning. Stop hating people! You're ruining it for me and I haven't even listened to it yet. :(

although if you're used to dull lo-fi white people dub then you might find something to salvage

I don't think it's terrible by any means. Just, perhaps, a little scatterbrained.

I've already resigned myself to the fact that I'm not going to like it nearly as much as their other stuff but it still makes me very very sad. They better not just play this next month. I mean I'm sure they won't but yeah.

a lot of this stuff could probably be complicated and rescued live

How many albums was their Interscope contract signed for? Maybe they're just looking for an easy exit.

'Sacrilege' is quite possibly the best thing on here!

god Always is amazing!

Reviews of this album have actually been fairly kind (77 on Metacritic, somehow), but I feel like critics are just giving it the benefit of the doubt.

i dunno folks, this is sounding pretty neat to me

skipped to the last three tracks everyone is talking about so basically this album is amazing to me so far!

"slave" and "despair" are my cuts off of this. definitely disappointing after it's blitz :(

the rap song is just...sigh

A positive review: http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2013/04/yeah-yeah-yeahs-mosquito.html

how come nobody's said, with mosquitoes the yeah yeah yeahs have lost their BITE

this mosquito truly sucks

don't scratch this itch, for mosquito

it don't draw blood

About to see them in Ventura. A surprisingly young crowd here tonight.

Hoped they had its blitz on vinyl, but it's all mosquito here tonight. Worth $17? The enthusiasm for this record seems low itt.

This cover is awful. Would prbly buy if the cover was not incredibles baby in grasp of mosquito.

listening to this for the first time just now, so far it's pretty bad-ass (1.5 songs in)

i agree sufjan. the cover is so bad it is honestly hard to not have it unfavorably influence my experience of the album, which i actually like a lot, especially "sacrilege."

sacrilege - i like this! sounds relaxed and loose, inhabitable in a way they haven't since maybe forever. hazy production and gospel vocals set up expectations that this is gonna be an exile move: dark, rootsy, unpop. i'm okay with that. i mostly love it's blitz! and like some stuff prior, but have never been fully on board with the yeah yeah yeahs. even starting with fever to tell, i've had the sense of something overconsidered, overdesigned, sculpted to within an inch of its life. the songs have sounded not like cool places they stumbled into, but like "cool spaces" they sat down and decided to construct. this feels much more natural.

subway - like this, too. similar reasons. nice vibe, faraway, stoned and unfussed. would hang.

mosquito - awesome. hilarious, good energy, the kind of shit i wish they'd onto after the first couple EPs (dialing down the intensity but keeping the energy). no great shakes, but i love the percussion and the spacey breakdown.

under the earth - okay, you're all crazy, this album is fantastic. love the bassline, drumming, falsetto vocals, dub noises, those "aaahs" that crop up about three minutes in (!), lyrics, lidded sway. hasn't been a big, standout pop move on the album yet, but i'll take a welcoming expanse in trade. on the first pass, i'm digging this a good deal more than i was the new knife.

slave - damn. if this is underdeveloped, i'm glad they quit where they did. reminds me of the stones' disco period and bowie/moroder's "cat people". and the album as a whole maybe of sandinista!. i could listen to this shit for days. might not stick in my head afterwards, but i'd have a good time.

these paths - okay, now i get the "underdeveloped" charges. this does sound like dubbed-out filler. still like it, but the energy flags (if not the vibe). lol, i thought she was saying "pants" at first. gets kind of lovely towards the end, kind of corny too.

area 52 - goofy shit, maybe too much so for it's own good, maybe not. i get the album cover now. like this and "mosquito" are supposed to be the touchstones. enjoyable, but i wish the arrangement and production here were a little more spacious, leave some room to bang, like the first b-52's album.

i desist. this is weird, lazy and good. along with it's blitz! probably my favorite yyy's. i appreciate the vacation they seem to be taking from big, tough power moves. and it's nice hearing from doctor octagon again. the poignant uplift stretch at the end of the album seems to betray the "concept", and isn't as strong as the "runaway" / "hysteric" / "little shadow" clutch at the end of it's blitz!, but i dig it okay. "wedding song" is particularly nice.

p.s. - i don't get the hate directed at buried alive. one of my favorite tracks here. relistening to it, i'm kind of tripping on how 90s this album really is, though. recalls "radio song" and "kool thing" more than, say, fall out boy flirting with rap/r&b. and the dubbiness reminds me of fringe downtempo stuff like dj spooky's free kitten remix.

and on the second pass, "always" and "despair" can go jump. the album really stumbles in the home stretch, which is a problem, but i'm very happy with the 9 songs i'll keep.

basically feel as contenderizer. i like how many different kinds of crawl are on here.

xpost That is the exact opposite of how I see this album, the last three tracks are the only ones I'm going to end up keeping on my itunes. It's not that the rest of it is terrible it just sounds so rushed and lacking the excitement or energy that made the first album so great. It's Blitz was close to being perfect for me and this feels like a pretty big disappointment. It feels like they really didn't know what kind of record to make so they just tried a bunch of songs in the style of their previous albums but with weaker tunes.

To me Sacrilege just sounds like an average Yeah Yeah Yeahs song but with a choir thrown in to try and give it some kind of edge, it doesn't it just sounds clumsy and over the top but in a bad way. The title track is a poor attempt at doing a Fever to Tell style song, it just isn't as fun as it should be. Most of the other tracks are just really forgettable.

The last three songs are just full of heart which is I guess what I'm after from them now. As I mentioned earlier in the thread I like their mellow side a lot more these days. Cheated Hearts, Turns Into, Softshock, Skeletons Runaway and Little Shadow are my favourite songs of theirs.

Great show. The mosquito songs translated well live. They opened with sacrilege. Ended up buying the vinyl. Heads will roll was the highlight for me. I know I'm 10 years behind you music geniuses in pointing this out, but the metal screams paired with the beautiful bridge in that song sum up the greatness of Karen o and this band for me

Under the Earth is probably my favorite track on the album.

a lot of this stuff could probably be complicated and rescued live

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Tuesday, April 16, 2013 9:37 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This was my experience. But I wasn't really a YYYs fan before seeing them live last night, so all of their recorded material has improved for me. I did find that Mosquito songs sounded great live, while some older songs that I knew, e.g. Zero, were surprisingly mediocre in comparison.

i agree sufjan. the cover is so bad it is honestly hard to not have it unfavorably influence my experience of the album, which i actually like a lot, especially "sacrilege."

― authentically inauthentic (Pat Finn), Tuesday, April 16, 2013 8:55 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It was the album release party, so they gave me a signed poster with the album cover on it at the merch table. I can't wait to frame it for hanging in my storage unit.

Under the Earth is probably my favorite track on the album.

― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, April 16, 2013 11:22 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Under the Earth is a jam. Sounds like an ESG track.

this is probably not a great album but I've listened to it more than half of what's "better" in 2013? then again I fuck with pretty much any late-'90s rock album like this one

Everything that people are moaning about in here just makes me want to hear this more, I think.

Haha on the last album I defended the lyrics as "impressionist", that you don't really need to listen to them or understand them, that they create a vibe that furthers the particular drive of a particular song and that's all they do, and that's fine, it's like her voice is more like another instrument than something that's conveying structured thought, and I still believe this; this time around I sort of want to defend the entire songs themselves as impressionist, that they create a sort of vibe but don't imprint themselves on the mind, but I don't think I'll believe this for longer than it takes to write this post

That said I really like this record so far, having heard the first four songs

on my playthrough upthread I bailed after the first four songs because I was super tired, but I loved the first four songs

love Slave! love those guitar sounds, how they come piercing through and snap it all into higher focus, the vocals suddenly more upfront too. These Paths ... not so great imo

This is not abysmal. I even dig Dr Octagon's part.