Yeah Yeah Yeahs have lifted the curtain on their very dramatic first single from their new album. “Sacrilege,” from “Mosquito,” is a dark, saucy rocker with a choir and a show-stopping a capella ending. It’s the one for the festivals and arenas, which also makes me hesitant to assume the rest of the effort, due April 16, is anything like it, considering all the psychedelia of that album cover, the mysterium of the album teaser trailer and the YYY’s long, happy history of curve ball album cuts.
That drum sound — the cymbals in particular — is so delicious and crunchy and in-room. I want that to be applied to Karen O’s nuanced, door-busting vocals, and instead it seems to be needlesly buried under a pile-on of effects for the sake of drama. This has a gospel choir, for crying out loud, it needn’t push the winning “Watchtower”/”Gimme Shelter” formula into an acid bath, but I see what you did there with all God’s angels singing about sacrilege. I feel like I just walked out of the post-Apocalypse.
Dave Sitek produced the whole set, so make sure your speakers are cranked to sample.