Yeah Yeah Yeahs
[#] Fever to Tell (2003)
Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.
Reviewed September 15, 2020
(This is an album that was previously covered on the Rediscovering! Click the link in the table to read my first impressions, or read on for how they might have changed.)
Fever to Tell made quite the splash in the world of post-9/11 NYC indie when it gave the world at large its first taste of The Karen O Experience. The wild, charismatic frontwoman, the clattering drums, the razor guitars, the sensitive indie love tune to lure in all the filthy casuals in "Maps"—I've read many period and retrospective reviews of just how cool they were and how cool this album is, and, well, I kinda get it. Kinda. This is an all-style record where songcraft and decent vocals are tossed to the wind in favor of pure energy, and unfortunately, I am a complete square, so this is lost on me. It's not a total waste, but after how much I enjoyed "Maps", Fever to Tell came as a sharp disappointment.
"I'm rich/Like a hot noise/Rich, rich, rich/I'll take you out, boy," Karen O shoots from the hip right at the start of album opener "Rich"—about 15 seconds before she goes off into a wailing fit. Those wailing fits power the entire first half of the album, turning perfectly good punk songs like "Tick" into goofy noisemaking exercises. When she reigns it in, Karen O gives much more listenable performances. "Cold Light" and "Y Control" are, indeed, pretty damn cool, Nick Zinner's guitarscapes a-buzzin' and a-blastin' and Brian Chase's drumwork a-groovin', and the hints of emotion on "Maps" and "Modern Romance", the latter little more than a springing drone and a key shift to give you a glimmer of hope, are tasty enough that you wish there was a little less posturing. Or maybe a lot less posturing.
| Essential: | "Cold Light", "Y Control", "Modern Romance" |
|---|---|
| Quintessential: | "Black Tongue" |
| Non-Essential: | "Tick" |
| Rating: |  |
| Further listening: | Fever to Tell's Rediscovering entry |