Yeah Yeah Yeahs’s 2013 record, “Mosquito,” is a balancing act between their shift into throbbing dance music and their brash New York City punk repertoire.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs’s variety of side-projects (lead songstress Karen O’s collaboration with Santigold, cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, work for the Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack, track “Strange Love” for Tim Burton’s 2012 Frankenweenie and countless collaborations- from The Tiny Masters of Today to Swans) and aesthetics are mirrored in “Mosquito”— like O’s image which is equally lipstick-smeared and leather-clad as it is warm, inviting and acoustic.
“Mosquito” is a curation of themes, both sonically and lyrically. It’s an album for a variety of people— far removed from their early work of audacious, thrashing punk like their debut 2003 record “Fever to Tell.” However, with cover art displaying a baby, reminiscent of The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, with green gunk covering both its mouth and hands, about to be attacked by a giant mosquito, it’s undoubtedly Yeah Yeah Yeahs at heart— mildly disturbing, juvenile and, for lack of a better term, weird.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs’s last record, “It’s Blitz,” was a shift from rough, indie-punk— with brash tracks like “Art Star” from their EP “Is Is”— into electro-pop— the radio-friendly “Heads Will Roll.”
“Mosquito,” while remaining quirky and chaotic with electronics and overlayed beats (plus a collaboration with Kool Keith/Doctor Octagon in “Buried Alive”) pays homage to their earlier, blithing sonics, evident in tracks like “Mosquito,” “Slave” and “Area 52” (a peculiar song about aliens, overlayed with space-y beeps and buzzes while maintaining a Ramones-esque riff.)
However, it’s not all avant-pop and punk rock. Karen O offers a variety of slow and sweet songs like “Subway,” an homage to New York City, featuring a clever use of sampled subway tracks, supplying the song with a steady and mechanical rhythm amongst O’s echoing voice and electric guitars’ slow, muffled chords. “Always,” another addition to “Mosquito’s” haunting undertones, sounds like a melodic track that could fit perfectly in the Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack. “Under the Earth” is a song loaded with self-explained “roots reggae” percussion— however the track conjures sonics comparable to a late new-wave Siouxsie and the Banshees tune that was tragically unused.
“Mosquito’s” eccentric curation of synthesizers and electric guitars is far from a departure album. Rather, Yeah Yeah Yeahs have created a body of work combining their versatile aesthetics into one easy-listening yet avant-garde record, mirroring hits like “Zero,” “Y-Control,” and “Maps” into a cohesive and conceptual package.
