It's Blitz - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

It's easy to be cynical isn't it? Rock-punk band comes back with an "all-new" electro sound...not exactly the most unheard of concepts in the 21st Century is it? Yet one listen of It's Blitz, the third album from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, is enough to melt away any pre-conceptions you might have about the new sound being little more than clever marketing. Because when an album is as good as this, who cares why it's here?

Opening track, and new single, Zero was easily the most overtly "pop" thing the group have ever done (not that that's a bad thing in my book...) but the brilliance of that is soon blown away by the track that follows it, Heads Will Roll. It might be trite to label it Blondie for the 21st Century, but that doesn't make it any less awesome.

I'd have to admit that, from a "pop single" point of view, these two tracks are never beaten, but that's not to say that what follows isn't extremely good either. Dragon Queen in a slinky slice of Disco (which reminds me of Franz Ferdinand's latest album - again, a good thing in my book) and the likes of Soft Shock and Runaway slow the pace down from these up-tempo Disco numbers but still manage to be genuinely affecting songs.

It's by no means a perfect album but neither are there too many moments where you think that this change of sound isn't working. It might not be the album that long-standing fans were expecting (or hoping for) but in it's own way it's a definite success.