I challenged myself to write this review in the time it took to play through this latest offering from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but all I could come up with was this little haiku:

Nothing like first disc
Awful sound offends the ear
Seven crap minutes

Allow me, for a moment, to speak candidly about economics, from one consumer to another. Seven minutes is not a lot of music, and the suggested retail price of this EP, with tax, is about seven dollars. I can brush my teeth for more than seven minutes, and I don't even get paid for that. Granted, a price tag may be no reason to pan a disc-- especially with technology being what it is nowadays-- but it's sure as hell a reason not to buy one, and so I caution you, gentle readers, pay not for this album. From an economics perspective, it's trash.

But before you YYY's fans put on your letter-writing hats and cry, "Capitalism made me do it!", know this: Machine disappoints on an almost unprecedented number of levels, and its unfortunate length is the least of its problems. On Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Karen O and her bad boys from Brooklyn combined just a guitar, drums, and a few teasy-sleazy pouts to create a sprawling, stomping, hook-spewing monster. It was a mixed bag overall, but one that yielded a few kernels of decency and left many, myself included, anxious for more.

As a follow-up, however, Machine seems designed to wrong all rights; there's barely a whiff of the old swagger, Nick Zinner's once-massive guitar hooks are nearly inaudible, and "Art Star" alone has more songwriting creativity in its middle finger than all of these tracks put together. In fact, when you take into account the abysmal production, overexposed vocals, and everything else that takes this EP one giant step backward from the promise of this band's debut, it's for the best that it ends quickly.

Between Zinner and convicted drum abuser Brian Chase lies a potential guitar/rhythm interplay mighty enough to take on Godzilla, pay off the national debt, and cure a little cancer, all at once. The proof of this lies in the YYY's soul-demolishing live assault, which, to a certain extent, was reproduced on the debut; Machine's production buries them squarely at the bottom of the Grand Fucking Canyon. Aside from the crack-like, nu-surf refrain showcased on the opener and some stellar percussion on "Graveyard", these two are almost nowhere to be found. Under no circumstances should a sound so colossal have to struggle to be heard. And it might not even be so difficult to pluck them out of the mix were Karen O not apparently singing through a megaphone for most of the EP.

To its credit, the title track manages to miraculously downplay these baffling production decisions, salvaging what little is left of this EP's silver lining, but that's the best I can say about it. A racing drone explodes into a chorus that speaks oddly of longing and malaise, and then picks up the pieces and starts again with redoubled effort. The pattern repeats as necessary. "Machine" (as in "sex machine"-- wink wink, nudge nudge) is a slightly obtuse swipe at some of the YYY's forced sexual tension, but at least it's decent fun. The secret shame, however, is that it sounds a little predictable from them at this point, and when your band hasn't even released ten songs, that's cause for concern.

Unfortunately, neither of the other two cuts even fares that well. "Graveyard" sounds as messy and incomplete as a two-minute garage improv on broken instruments, minus any sort of spontaneity or real energy, and Karen O's voice is soaked with enough piercing reverb to lance white-hot needles of pain through your cochlea. And then, as quickly as it began, the disc closes out with "Pin (Remix)", a track which has the distinction of being the most interesting YYY's song I've heard yet-- and not in a good way. The spacy, almost hypnotic drive of this song, which has been a live staple for a while now (obviously in unremixed form) is here reduced to little more than a low-volume hum-- so low as to be almost totally inaudible compared to the rest of the album. If everything didn't end up echoing into a single, gooey mass, it might work as a drone experiment, but it still proves to be obvious filler.

The YYY's have the essential elements of a fine rock outfit lying around their apartment, somewhere, but those elements are clearly not seeing much use lately, if this EP is any indication. Its anemic attempts at bluster wouldn't last ten seconds against anything off the debut. What I'm saying is, there are limitless ways to blow seven dollars, but none could be more wasteful than buying this EP. It's a fucking joke.

-Eric Carr, January 9th, 2003