Karen O reintroduces us to Yeah Yeah Yeahs after four years by telling us that she’s “fallen for a guy, who fell down from the sky, halo round his head,” easily conjuring a simple story, and then she lets the simplicity of those lyrics manifest by repeating them while Nick Zinner and Brian Chase quietly creep in behind her. As the chorus of “Sacrilege” comes around you’re expecting Zinner to cut through with a bursting guitar riff at the opportune moment but he’s happy to sit back and noodle in the background, leaving Karen O to emphasise the “sacrilege” of the story in her typically scrappy delivery. The song finally starts to build at around the second chorus when a 20-person-strong choir rises from nowhere, pronouncing the religious theme of the song further. The song grows organically with the choir for the next minute and a half before ending naturally just short of the four minute mark. “Sacrilege” is impressive in its ambition, and has the most scope of any song Yeah Yeah Yeahs have released to date, but it still feels like it’s missing some of the edge and verve of their earlier albums. It might be the case that they’ve saved those moments for other tracks on Mosquito, and that “Sacrilege” makes more sense in the context of the album, but we’ll have to wait until April 16th to find out.
Mosquito is out via Interscope April 16th
