It’s Blitz is certainly a bold new disco twist on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs own particular brand of angular art house rock.
Consistently terrific, Journal for Plague Lovers is as good a demonstration of those ideas as you could hope to discover.
Such praise for her evocations of insecurity won't help her self esteem much, granted, but for her band it seems to have spurred them on to even greater heights.
The main thing our attention is stuck to is Falco himself - there's something about his delivery, combined with the intriguing lyrics ("but does it fuck like a maaaan?") that's completely riveting. Even then, those aspects are only the jewel in the crown of a very, very accomplished rock album.
The fact that WWPJ go over the top sometimes, that they seem rough around the edges and naive and do silly things like putting a two-and-a-half minute instrumental inbetween the album’s best two songs simply makes them all the more loveable because if this album is about anything it’s about the folly of youth and the ambition that characterises it.
Primary Colours is the most satisfying surprise that 2009 is likely to deliver.
Two Dancers has a blend of invention and pop sensibility that seems to have been largely lacking on this side of the Atlantic in recent years.
The band’s resounding achievement ... is to infuse their music with melancholy without letting it lose buoyancy.
While sometimes the avant-garde posturing can make for a chilly listen, emotionally at least, and the fragmented song structures can jar, there is no mistaking the radiating pop sensibility running throughout, which makes Bitte Orca a more accessible record than their past efforts, but a no less inventive one.
Veckatimest is deep, it’s rich, it’s soulful and on more than enough occasions it’s just good, old-fashioned, spine-shudderingly beautiful.