Sounds Like:  A Seismic shift.

A Yeah Yeah Yeahs record doesn’t come along all that often. Their last was 2013, and the one before that was 2009. What’s interesting is how their albums always show up in a year where I’m going through some colossal sea change, and how the music seems to also reflect that.

“Cool It Down” feels bigger than any of their past records, It shakes the walls with sound. But where the Yeahs used to go for a blitz, here it’s a rumble. They’re no longer satisfied with the knocking you out with a whiplash of guitar and lyrics. No, on “Cool it Down” they are after bigger game: they want to overturn your whole world. That’s the sound of this record, it’s slower, more deliberate, but much more grand in its design, and substantial in it’s impact. In the past they might have hurled some mud in your eye, here they are dropping a whole mountain on you.

What makes this sound is how powerful the percussion is, and how it really dominates the record. Of course you have Karen O as our ringmaster, but she’s taken a new guise as well. She knows the music will level you, so she sings with a relaxed inevitably She’s so in control but also resigned becauses she know the outcome five moves ahead.

With a run time of just over thirty two minutes, its amazing how much ground is covered in that time. It maybe their strongest record of their career, rivaled only by their first two records. (& “Show Your Bones” is a top all-time record for me)

I’m not breaking down songs here, as the whole record is a mood altering experience.  Listening to “Cool It Down” is the feeling of accepting your fate in this world: it has it’s dread, but it’s overpowered by the relief of succumbing. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs have once again returned to sent you free.  They’re big, and everything else is inconsequential.

Favorite Track: I really dig “Wolf” but “Spitting Of The Edge Of The World” is the fuse that sets the whole thing off, so lets go with that.