If any group could capitalize on indie’s embrace of pop and submission to nostalgia in the last decade, Yeah Yeah Yeahs surely might have reshaped their volatile Technicolor swagger to fit the bill to a tasteful T. But leave it to Karen O and co. to explode out of their hiatus with a cannon blast. Slowing down the drum beat of Show Your Bones opener “Gold Lion” to a mechanized crawl, “Spitting Off the Edge of the World,” the lead single from their first new album in nine years, hurls the band into a cinematic fever dream, trading the former song’s folky guitar strums for the cosmic churning of synthesizers. O, joined by experimental pop prince Perfume Genius, stares down the apocalypse with a commanding sermon, defiant but reflective as she comes to grips with leaving a rotting world to her son.
Late in the song, O turns the camera on herself and hands him the mic. “Mama, what have you done?” she laments as the doomsday clock ticks down, striking midnight to the screaming fuzz of a barn-burning Nick Zinner guitar solo and Brian Chase’s thundering drum fills. The trio throws all of its weight behind the song’s futuristic arena rock, charging out of the bomb shelter to bet it all on a last-ditch trick play. The message is simple but effective: if you’re going to stage a comeback at the end of the world, throw the strongest hail mary pass you can—and pray.
Though the return to IMAX-sized synths and floor-filling beats will inevitably recall the vibrant electronic rock fantasia of 2009’s It’s Blitz!, Cool It Down brings its own sentimental dance party to life by painting with a more tightly coordinated color palette. Producer Dave Sitek, who’s contributed to every YYYs album since 2002’s Machine EP, chops down the guitars to usher in pianos, strings, and heavier bass than they’ve ever played with. Cool It Down’s deep grooves usher in a patient new era, gracefully shedding the electrifying hunger of the band’s early days to make room for tempered joy.
Due to either the album’s truncated recording process—a breezy five months for a group used to a long demo process—or simply rose-colored wistfulness, Yeah Yeah Yeahs spend some of Cool It Down’s sharpest moments citing and deconstructing their influences with refreshing candor. It’s jarring how cleanly “Burning” lifts the vocal melody of the Four Seasons’ “Beggin’.” But as the shock wears off, it’s impossible to ignore the sweetness of the track’s earnest charm, the slick inventions of the updated arrangement that swaddle the original’s ’60s stomp in tight disco strings, or the exhilarating wail of O’s soaring vocal.