Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Show Your Bones"

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones

Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Show Your Bones contains some good moments, however, as a whole this Indie CD is just this side of unexciting. For die-hard Yeah Yeah Yeah fans only.

"Gold Lion", Yeah Yeah Yeahs' first single released from Show Your Bones, plods through and says nothing particularly interesting. The tune is workmanlike, with prominent drums, sporadic, automaton-like guitar chords, and Karen O's gurning vocalization. Her echoey "oo-ooo" is pleasant, but standard, stuff.

Guitarist Nick Zinner provides a counterpoint to Brian Chase's dominant drums in "Way Out". About 1:14 into the song, the guitars break into a sort of melodic solo, traveling up and down the fret in a way that reminds me of We Are Scientists. Karen O's piercing voice moans, "The face ain't makin' what the mouth needs", but that's a lyrical gem that's all too rare.

"Fancy" is a highlight track, due largely to the drumming (again). The lyrics are the weak point: "We read it / for three days" isn't exactly inspiring stuff. The album takes an upward turn with "Honeybear", which is a sort of spiky pogoing song, heavy on scratchy guitars and cymbals. But, as with "Way Out", the best line ("Turn yourself around / you weren't invited") is delivered early in the song, and no other line can match it.

"Cheated Hearts" is a disillusioned love song (as far as I can tell), but it sounds too much like the other songs. Only Karen O's standout line, "Sometimes I think that I'm bigger than the sound" partly redeems it.

"Dudley" is soothingly melodic, but sounds too much like the nursery rhyme "Hush, Little Baby". (Try singing, "Hush, little baby, don't say a word / Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird" and so forth over the opening stanza.) It's a shame because this nursery rhyme would provide better lyrics.

The problem with relying on an occasional memorable line to carry a song is that you end up with an album that says nothing. Of course, an album need not say anything, but the music better compensate by being pretty darn exciting - unfortunately, Show Your Bones is not.

Interscope

Rating: 2½ out of 5

Highlights: "Fancy", "Honeybear", "Cheated Hearts"

Similar to: The White Stripes, Morningwood

First published on Suite 101