Mosquito

The song structures themselves are not sophisticated, but they groove their way to satisfaction, and the hooks on almost every track are addictive for all their lack of subtlety.

Mosquito sees the band reenergised, trying new things and, generally, succeeding.

As much as it recaptures some of their buccaneering early spirit, it also shows off some explosive new tricks too.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs are still innovating, and even those previously apathetic to them will be hard-pressed to deny that they’re still one of the most exciting guitar bands around.

It is a blazingly enjoyable record, the most purely fun album the band has made since Fever to Tell.

There's nothing perplexing in the music — the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are back, better than ever and ready to "suck your blood."

They've stepped up their ballad game, and the grooves, smartly percussive and Kanye-slick, are deeper than ever.

For all their consistency, it's good to know Yeah Yeah Yeahs remain capable of pulling off the unexpected.

More of a pick and mix selection than a fully formed record, Mosquito at times punctures the skin but not often enough does it have sufficient zeal to take a good slurp of your life source.

Solicited as a return to basics, it’s actually more of a compromise, blending the garage melee of their earlier efforts with danceable tempos and emotionally searing balladry.

Much of the New York trio's fourth album has a bracing energy and they repurpose three-decade-old influences instead of bowing down to them as revivalists.

When they hark back to dingy dives, it falters, but when they embrace the synthesizer, the LP is astounding.

A confusing, intriguing record, then. Not their strongest, but there's a transition underway.

The fine line between predator and prey in the urban landscape through which O wanders is the overarching theme for most of these songs, but it gets a bit hard to distinguish amidst the clatter.

It might not be as cohesive as their best albums, but the standout songs rival their finest moments.

Like the best blues singers, O manages to make loneliness not just inclusive but balls-out celebratory.

A return of sorts to the raw-power sound of their early years, and in many ways it comes off like an album by a much younger band. That’s a good thing — and a bad thing.

It’s to be praised for continuing the band’s relentless pursuit of different sounds to shape themselves around. But, all things considered, the ratio of success to failure is just a little unbalanced this time around.

Four albums later, the Brooklyn outfit has run so far from the proverbial leash that they’ve forgotten what home might be — and really, true freedom seems frivolous without any restraint.

Searing highlights make you wish the rest of Mosquito was a bit more full-blooded.

The problem is, for a band whose name echoes with the affirmative, none of this feels like a definitive lunge towards some loftier height, either artistic or commercial.

With the electronic influence creeping in and more of a focus on great pop songs, Yeah Yeah Yeahs had seemed to have stopped making repetitious tracks. Seemed to. Mosquito is a big back step in that department. 

It feels like a reaction to the concise, clear-headed It's Blitz; wild-eyed hoopla, in that spontaneous, occasionally brilliant, occasionally patchy kind of way.

All in all: not a bad album, but most of the time it’s more harmless midge than lethal mosquito.

Mosquito is not without highlights, but it requires some patience to unearth them, because when this record is bad, it's loudly, brazenly bad.

Divided between these sorts of small successes and outright failures, Mosquito is nowhere near a coherent album, which at this stage in the band’s career feels like a refreshing return to form.

Unfortunately, the latest Yeah Yeah Yeahs album is one of those instances when the album's lead single seems to be the best track, dwarfing nearly every other song on the album with ambition, glitz, and great songwriting. The rest of the album is a bit spotty, in my opinion.

Mosquito dips its toes into far too many pools to ever have a chance to really stop and appreciate the feeling.

With the experiments being so hit and miss you’re left looking for familiar thrills, but even when delivering these, the band sound so much like there are motions to be gone through that you just aren’t inclined to feel engaged.

It doesn’t follow a set path, makes a lot of noise in your ears, but its ultimately something you’ll want to swat away and get rid of because of just how badly it annoys you.