Yeah Yeah Yeahs Roar Back With 'Cool It Down'

Plus, a new weekly playlist and the first release from Mama Mañana Records is out today!

This week’s new music playlist is available on Spotify and Apple Music! Featuring the latest and greatest from Weyes Blood, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Hubba, Nation of Language, Trick Mist, Edgar Wonder & Lilian Andrea, Daithí, Louis Cole, Gold Tides, Eerie Wanda, LOBSTERBOMB, and Teen Daze, there’s most certainly something here to wet your ear whistle!

Songs You Need to Hear Now 10/4 on Spotify

Songs You Need to Hear Now 10/4 on Apple Music

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If you enjoy this review for the latest from Yeah Yeah Yeahs, why not subscribe to Check This Out!? You’ll receive fresh tunes in your inbox twice weekly. Rad!

If you’re checking in on the early 00s indie scene in the past few years, there’s been a mixed bag of releases. Until the release of a single last week, LCD Soundsystem seems comfortable as a sporadic live band that shows up at NFT conventions. The Strokes reinvented themselves and learned how to have fun again on The New Abnormal in 2020, landing on Check This Out!’s year-end list, while at the same time, TV on the Radio is nowhere to be found. The National’s last great yet bloated album is now three years old. The Killers continue to release records at a steady pace, even if they aren’t clicking with me, and a few months ago, I suggested listening to Interpol’s latest album for a sleep aid.

Out of the spotlight, the longest are Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the band at the top of this pile with The Strokes. Karen O continues to release solo records while Nick Zinner stays busy, playing with Liam Gallagher, Phoebe Bridgers, and Santigold in the past few years and drummer Brian Chase currently runs an avant-garde label, Chaikin Records. It’s been nine years since their last record, Mosquito, which is also their first miss in an immaculate career, so it feels like it’s been forever since It’s Blitz! in 2009. A return to touring in 2017, including a killer twin bill I saw at the Hollywood Bowl with LCD Soundsystem, the five years since their reintroduction have left fans ready for a new record. After all of this time, can a new album meet the hype?

In short, Cool It Down is not only in the top tier of indie releases this year but also a perfect maturation in their career that flirts with being their best work yet. The lead single, “Spitting Off the Edge of the World,” kicked off summer and squashed any doubt that Yeah Yeah Yeahs lost a step. A song about climate change and the younger generations that are left to deal with it, the band brings along Perfume Genius for a fuzzed-out hook that makes the world a better place because it exists.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs play it smart with the runtime at eight songs in a little over half an hour - everything here is a choice cut. “Burning” is the kind of song that once again shows why Karen O is a legendary frontwoman, as its slow smoldering verses give way to a performance that is on par with anything from Show Your Bones, but Zinner’s soaring guitar and the string section are a natural evolution in sound. “Wolf” calls back to their best record, It’s Blitz, with its electropop synth swagger, and speaking of TV on the Radio, prolific member and producer Dave Sitak is once again behind the boards for Cool It Down, bringing the band back into the sleekness of It’s Blitz compared to some of their lo-fi beginnings and detours. Even early atmospheric slowdown “Love Bomb” earns its place in the lineup, one that unveils new textures with each journey back to the album. “Fleez” works wonderfully as an album mid-point with it’s funky fuzz bass and driving dance grooves.

As great as it is that Yeah Yeah Yeahs demonstrate they can still rip with the best of them, their unhurried work like “Skeletons,” “Dudley,” and Karen O’s solo work is often what I gravitate towards when listening to the group. The back half of this record slides into comfy mode perfectly, with the lush layers and horns on “Blacktop” and the earnest pop of “Different Today.” Cool It Down closes with “Mars,” a conversation between Karen O and her child that ends the record on a sweet note and communicates the passing of time since their debut twenty years ago.

To see the impact that Karen O and Yeah Yeah Yeahs have had on indie music since their last record, one needs to look no further than their homecoming show at Forest Hills Stadium this past weekend. Opening for the group was an all-AAPI women-led lineup with Japanese Breakfast and The Linda Lindas, which would have seemed impossible for an arena show when Karen O burst on the scene. They’re even an indie band in practice now, having signed with Secretly Canadian for their latest, a label that houses many artists influenced by them. As gigantic a legacy Yeah Yeah Yeahs have, with Cool It Down, they aren’t resting on their laurels and show why they’re one of the most vital indie bands of this early century. Here’s hoping for a shorter wait for the next one, but if this is it, Yeah Yeah Yeahs are going out on top.

Cool It Down is available now on Secretly Canadian.

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I’m happy to announce that we dropped our first release for Mama Mañana Records today. Empty Dreams is the new EP from Hubba, also known as label co-founder Jared Garcia, and is available on cassette and streaming services. The lead single, “By Your Side,” is a massive success, quickly gaining more plays than we have ever hoped for, and we both want to thank all of you who have listened and shared your kind words and encouragement.

If you want to support MMR, the limited edition smoky brown cassette is available on Bandcamp now, and we’ll send it your way this week with some stickers and stuff.