Best Follow Up

In the last few weeks I had a post about music I liked where I said I loved "Zero", the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs track and another post where I put up the video to the new Royksopp song "Happy Up Here." Now I've heard "It's Blitz!", the record that "Zero" comes from and "Junior", the record with "Happy Up Here" on it. It's just good news that two bands I like plenty have new records, but what if both records are good? Here's what I think of them...


"It's Blitz"

This record is strong and good, but not the pop dance album Zero may have caused you to expect. On the whole, a lot more chill than anticipated, but it crackles with electricity and buzzes with so much life and the YYYs definitely bringing their A game. Liked it so much after two listens that it had me revisiting "Fever to Tell" and the super-underrated "Show Your Bones." This is a band of winners to me.


"Junior"

Honestly, here's the sad truth: When I asked "but what if both records are good?" I was sort of leading you on to hope that both records were good because Junior, I don't know, it wore me out. The lyrics are often so stupendously ridiculous and every song sounds so incredibly Royksoppy that I was left wondering what purpose this record served. Just sounds like Melody AM and the Understanding mixed up together, the album is probably very likable if you haven't heard one of the two, but if you've listened to both plenty, it's rather yawners. Worse than yawners, annoying actually.