Yeah Yeah Yeahs ft. Perfume Genius – Spitting Off the Edge of the World
Introducing the Yeah No Yeah No Yeah No Yeahs…
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[5.50]
Aaron Bergstrom: “Spitting” would have succeeded on its own merits, but stacked up next to the failed comeback efforts of Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ contemporaries (Arcade Fire, Phoenix, M.I.A., whatever this is) it comes off as positively revelatory. It’s been almost 20 years since Fever to Tell and Karen O still brings the sun. Your move, cowards.
[9]
Thomas Inskeep: A grind, a slog, a massive disappointment. Karen O can still soar when given the chance, but “Spitting” gives her nothing.
[3]
Hannah Jocelyn: I can hear Bono wailing that chorus, but Karen O’s bratty, overdriven vocals make this more urgent than anything U2’s put out this century. A typically blown-out Shawn Everett mix helps, conveying a scale appropriate for another song pleading to stop fucking with the kids or whatever. Of course, as any Twitter thread or article will tell you, fucking with the kids is exactly the point, because there’s an oppressive society to maintain. Reading the lyrics, something as simple as “Mama, what have you done?” hits. If only the mix prioritized them! Still, this has my favorite three-chords-and-the-truth progression (IV-I-V) so the lyrics could be horrible and the song would still soar.
[8]
Andrew Karpan: The pairing with Perfume Genius comes off somehow worse than the deep cut James Murphy buried on their last album, which featured the only other guest vocalist in the YYY pantheon, ’90s rap lifer Dr. Octagon. In slowing the sound of these ’00s garage rock lifers down to a sickly baroque crawl, the assorted group make their point about the imminent climate crisis. It sucks to not rock out.
[3]
Ian Mathers: Well now I want the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and/or Perfume Genius to make a shoegaze album; properly big turbine roar/lava flow guitars, harmonies, the whole thing. “But Ian you want everyone to make a shoegaze album.” You’ve got a point there, but in my defence the vertiginous swells of this song suggest that in this case I might be on to something.
[8]
Katherine St Asaph: I preferred the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to the yeeeeaaaaaahhh… yeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaahhhhh… yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhs.
[2]
Reader average: [8] (2 votes)