Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell
(Interscope)
This record has been out long enough, and the band hyped enough, that I imagine
anyone interested has already made up their minds, if not checked it out. Can
this one review stand against that tide of decisiveness? What difference can I
hope to make? Is this not a case of too little, too late? That may be so,
however, Fakejazz will not be deterred. Some lowly publicist, trapped inside
the hungry major label machine-perhaps hungry, lonely, cold, trying to remember
daylight-has taken the trouble to send this CD to our secret underground
bunker, along with a stapled sheaf of crudely photocopied articles and reviews,
and the absolute very least that we can do is pretend to review it. After all,
if we were to just simply trade it without such a cursory courtesy, said
publicist may lose all hope (and, most tragically stop sending us CDs)...Thus, on to the task at hand.
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are a band for people who wished Sleater-Kinney rocked it a
little bit dumber and dirtier. The singer, Karen O, is a good facsimile of a rock n' roll role model for girls who are too young to know who Chrissie Hynde is. Their big time debut full length is astonishing in its flaccidity. For all of the volume, it just lies their motionless. Guitars chug-a-chug, and Ms. O yelps and whines, and I can only assume that they are flesh and blood humans, because it all comes off with the energy and passion of automatons. On the upside, their drummer seems competent.
Not that this is much of a surprise. Of all the bands to ditch Touch and Go
for the sweetened poison of the Big Time, Yeah Yeah Yeahs had the least
credibility. The Butthole Surfers major label efforts were more embarrassing
by far, but they had, at least, a certain level of quality from which to fall
(or puerile depths from which to rise is perhaps a bit more accurate). So,
here's to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, whose affectation of rock and roll danger is
perfectly suited to Wal-Mart, packaging, tie-ins, and, hopefully, being grown
out of.
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