Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “It’s Blitz!”

Rating: 8/10

Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ 2003 razor-sharp debut LP “Fever To Tell” remains one of the best time capsules from an era when trashy NYC art punk was something to get excited about.

Unfortunately, no band could have kept up that level of whiskey-soaked punk rock for long. Fortunately, Yeah Yeah Yeahs never really tried. However, the band’s lukewarm follow-up, “Show Your Bones,” revealed a band in developmental limbo, unsure of which step to take next.

With “It’s Blitz!,” the band remedies this issue by moving in the trendy, perhaps inevitable direction of ’80s new wave by toning down the Godzilla guitars and jacking up the synth and drum machine quotient while the always-captivating frontwoman Karen O substitutes her shrieks and squeals for coos and throaty come-ons.

It works.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs sound completely comfortable on this album, doing great things with the new sound. The propulsive opener and lead-off single, “Zero” builds on buzzed, elliptical synths, kicking butt well before the awesome and brassy keyboard line kicks in at the two-minute mark.

The next tune, “Heads Will Roll” never lets up, with Karen O commanding, “Off! Off! Offwithyrhead!” over chunky guitars in a booming chorus.

I feel uncomfortable being more excited about the slower, quieter moments on the album, but it’s in these that “It’s Blitz!” truly shines. Karen O, always the band’s focal point, is the Chrissie Hynde of this decade: a dark-haired, leather-clad tough girl capable of scaring the boys away with an angry snarl, while also being in possession of a soaring, beautiful voice that renders the band’s ballads completely unforgettable (remember “Maps”?).

The album’s centerpiece is “Skeletons,” a delicate, almost tone poem that will prove to be one of the loveliest, saddest tracks you’ll hear all year. Initially accompanied by an undulating synth and a distant, shoegazed guitar, Karen O hits heartrending high notes, taking the tune exactly where it needs to go as the drums and glistening electronics slowly build to a satisfying, yet not overblown climax.

That’s the Yeah Yeah Yeahs of 2009, willing to turn down the volume and try new things but having the confidence and smarts to pull them off.