Audio By Carbonatix
Yeah Yeah Yeahs were among the earliest members of their particular indie cohort to earn mainstream fame, but they wore it well — aside from the unavoidable song-fatigue side effects of appearing in a version of Rock Band, “Maps” seems to have avoided every possible pitfall on its way to the decade’s canon of influential singles. That was 10 years ago, somehow. Three albums later — released at clockwork intervals — the band has yet to match that first flush of success, but Yeah Yeah Yeahs haven’t crashed and burned, either. Instead, Karen O and company have just proved remarkably solid. On 2013’s Mosquito, they continue to experiment around their ultimately recognizable sound, willfully avoiding the urge to produce another song in which their weird rhythms and echoes and wheedling guitar tones come together as perfectly as “Maps.” It might not be what you’re looking for, if you’re looking for Rock Band-level coherence, but it’s another consistent record from a band that still threatens, every couple of minutes, to put together a crossover hit by accident.
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