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April 9-15, 2009
buzz@boulderweekly.com
 Yeah Yeah Yeahs,
It’s Blitz! (Interscope)
by Dan DeLuca
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are doing an excellent job of growing up — and transforming themselves — in public. Used to be, the trio got by on fashionista Karen O’s banshee yelp, backed by the headlong rush provided by Nick Zinner’s power-chord crunch and Brian Chase’s thumping drums. The band still utilizes those elements, and it hasn’t entirely broken the habit of hurtling forward with ecstasy in its sights. But now the New York trio, along with coproducer Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio, is more likely to achieve its aims, with disco-flavored keyboards and programmed drums. And despite the title, the band is now more likely to explore quiet longing, with songs like “Little Shadows” and the misleadingly named “Hysteric,” than pursue lightning warfare pandemonium. That might have been bad news if the trio’s songwriting chops hadn’t improved along the way, and if Karen O hadn’t learned that as a singer, she can convey as much feeling with a whisper as with a scream.
—MCT
 UGK,
UGK 4 Life (Jive)
by A.D. Amorosi
It’s crazy, macabre and sad when Pimp C hollers, “Back from the dead!” during this last collaboration with fellow Texan crack-rapper Bun B. Not just because C died in December 2007. The Southern gangsta UGK had been around since the late ’80s and scored its first No. 1-charting album (Underground Kingz) before Pimp’s passing. Plus Pimp had only recently gotten out of prison when they recorded that 2007 effort. That’s some lousy breaks. Pour the Pimp out a forty.
That said, it’s good to know that UGK had an album mostly in the can before Pimp took his leave; Bun has said there is enough existing material for yet another album. On UGK 4 Life, the hard-nosed Bun and his always (shockingly) musical co-MC take to the pairing’s usual bare-bones beats and slippery subject matter. While Bun kicks verbs to the curb with quick dispatch (a fiery “Da Game Been Good to Me”), Pimp’s gentlemanly drawl lingers on each syllable with a flow that finds him stretching words like taffy and cramming more syllables than imaginable into every phrase. That’s probably what makes Pimp a symphony and why the duo made merry with potently soulful vocalist Raheem DeVaughn (“Still on the Grind”), the underrated Sleepy Brown (“Swishas & Erb”), and the legendary Ron Isley (“The Pimp & The Bun”). Still, long after UGK 4 Life’s over, it’s Pimp’s melodic flow you’ll most remember.
—MCT
 The Thermals,
Now We Can See (Kill Rock Stars)
by Steve Klinge
In 2006, Portland trio the Thermals released The Body, the Blood, the Machine, a timely political concept album full of bile, ire and frustration lyrically, and of buzz-saw pop-punk catharsis musically. It was one of the year’s best.
Although not quite as startlingly invigorating, Now We Can See is a worthy successor. With rousing melodies and propulsive eighth-note guitar chords, these 11 songs hurtle by joyfully, taking a breath only for the mid-album power ballad “At the Bottom of the Sea.” And there’s plenty to reward careful listening: Vocalist/guitarist Hutch Harris makes every lyric sound like an exhortation or a proclamation, and most songs find him grappling with mortality and returning to images of water and other liquids. It’s a swift, coherently complex album that sounds bracingly loud at any volume.
—MCT
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