When we’re drained by life, when we don’t have clean water
or rain, how do we manage to make art? When we’ve been sucked dry by mosquitoes,
and our thoughts are filled with images of blood and death, dangerous sex, and appalling poverty, how can we taste the sweetness of our
science? How can we delight in the breath of a joke?
I think many of us have asked ourselves questions from a similar kaleidoscope, varying in artistry and in light of misadventure. One of the reasons I
love the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is that they like to break down the intellectual romp
inherent in privilege, and just get down and dirty. It’s personal music, and each album they make—including Mosquito—is different in the way people can grow to be over the course of
their lives. Which is not very much. The organic progression the Yeah Yeah
Yeahs’ music has taken aligns with the simple, profound discoveries we make
every day, or every couple of years, when something really happens to us. When
a spark flies from our ears and we look at life sideways and say, you fucking
trickster, I didn’t know it worked that way. I didn’t know, “If it’s all in my
head there’s nothing to fear.” I didn’t know I could be kinder. I thought I was
standing still.
Fat bass-y beats lead Karen O's spectacular voice into the lyric, “With every
breath I breathe, I’m making history,” in “Wedding Song.” The slappy sound of
the drums feels like gently smacking your chest as you stand, gazing concertedly,
in front of live band that’s making the world a better place; or at least, art for the
sake of art. In the case of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Mosquito, it’s music that beautifully narrates a commitment to a
shared reality, in which life is sad and painful sometimes, but very often full
of love and thrills.
“Mosquito” has a progressive rock electric
guitar-and-drums-in-unison sound that makes your blood pump; “Subway” is a quiet
tribute to the preciousness of not-yet-knowing; “Under the Earth” and “Always” sound like opening up a musical box, or placing a dead bird in a shoe box; and
“Despair,” the highlight of the album—and the one most reminiscent of previous
Yeah Yeah Yeahs music (this is, shockingly, their fourth studio album)—is so
full of bath-time rhetoric and shaky window-light, you want to cry. It’s the joy that
closes its lips around a tragedy.
Grade: B+
Grade: B+
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