Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Is Is

After the tour for Fever To Tell, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs must have realized that they would need to come up with some great new material to top that stellar album. The end result, Show Your Bones, proved to be not as enjoyable as the debut and it may have seemed possible that this N.Y.C. trio may have flamed out early.
It’s refreshing that they’re trying a rebound just a little over a year after Bones, and doing something within a format (the e.p.) that they revisit while being very proficient working inside that format’s restrictions.
Curiously; the e.p. is, for all intents and purposes, a dead format that’s days are limited as digital music outlets, both legit and P2P, don’t offer much in terms of album art and they don’t require the listener to sit through the entire song-cycle.
Is Is may be those initial songs that the band worked on when setting out to follow-up Fever. They sound like them: raw, expansive, and creatively reaching ahead. The five songs within the e.p. have little commercial appeal and it’s extremely brave of them to go down that path, particularly since “Maps” opened up tremendous opportunities for them.
It’s important to tell you then that the title track (“Isis”) is surely the band’s symbolical cousin to “Maps,” or at least the depressive cousin of it.
“Rockers To Swallow” ranks as one of Y3's best tracks ever. The band's delivery of the song is vaguely comfortable while being slightly unique “Tell me what rockers to swallow/Tell me what rockers to BITE” Karen O barks, with an attitude that immediately places her near the top as one of the most provocative women in rock today.
Let’s also suggest that, while Is Is may not be the best thing the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have ever done, it’s good enough to consider the possibility that they need to be mentioned when naming the best American rock bands around today.
That’s how good Is Is is.