Search - Yeah Yeah Yeahs :: Fever to Tell

Disappointed, but optimistic

Eugene Vermeesch | 07/25/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Ok so I've known about the YYY's for a while but this is the first stuff I have heard of them besides "Maps" and "Zero." All together an album worth listening to. Some of the better rock sound I've heard in years, but one very annoying thing is that Karen O repeats words over and over again in about every song. I picked it up immediately, so it kind of annoys now when I listen to it. She is a good singer, but needs to fill gaps in the song with more lyrics, less repetition. I can say that this record has really intrigued me enough that I am going to buy their latest release "its Blitz" right now. Conclusively a refreshing ray of hope in the dying world of alt rock."

The ultimate Yeah Yeah Yeahs album

E. Kutinsky | Seattle, WA | 10/22/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I was only a minor fan of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs until recently, nodding my head politely whenever "Maps" would be played somewhere. That changed when I saw them live this year and got to truly experience the outsized persona of Karen O in what must be her natural habitat, screaming and bending and spitting on stage in all her rock star glory. I found myself working backwards through their music, so, Fever To Tell was actually the third Yeah Yeah Yeahs album I bought, and it brought a fresh perspective on the record I don't think I could have picked up on when it was initially released - then it just seemed like a PJ-Harvey-fed chick rock also-ran of the then-hip garage rock revival, whose guitar skills were greatly overstated. With that trend come and gone, it's become clear Fever To Tell is even snappier, brasher, cruder, and beefier than all of its contemporaries, and that it's never stopped being a blast of wild, breathy, fearless insolence. Karen O shrieks and caws that she's "Rich rich rich" in the opening number, and the result is somewhere between elation and total unnerved fear. Moving into "Date With The Night," a song that seems half orgasm, half exorcism, the record becomes a dual catalogue of sexual catharsis and rather ferocious party music, making O's wails into the stuff of near dance music. The album could have been dismissed for being too same-y with one of these tracks after another, but the fabric of them together is an undeniable blast, and the songs, one by one, take on a rage specific to each one. "No No No" begins to wander off into sonic nothingness, but allowing that to move into "Maps" gives that song's intimacy new relevance. Which, in turn, gives "Y Control" the right extra punch it needs - the song is gut shatteringly loud and full of feedback, but it's also the straightest vocal Karen O does on the record, making it full of the wisdom around it. Fever To Tell gets better with age, it turns out, and it's because it's the full evocation of exactly who this band is, exactly as they are."