Yeah Yeah Yeahs are my heroes.They alone have had the cajones necessary to call people out on the second greatest evil done at gigs.

The first is, of course, the 5’ 4” couple who stand at your exact eye-level and make out the whole time. However, that pales into an (albeit more unhygienic) second place behind the absolute eejits who stand in front of you and film the whole thing on their phones. There is nothing more frustrating than getting stuck behind one of those people who think that capturing their scratchy, nasty bootleg is more important than listening to the actual people on stage. Yeah Yeah Yeahs have outlawed watching through camera phones at their gigs and thus deserve a massive round of applause. Furthermore, if I were Queen, they would get some sort of medal, knighthood, or whatever it is that Queens give out to heroes of the realm. All I’m saying is that if you were listening to this album live, you’d be too busy picking your jaw off the floor to film anything.

If pyrotechnics and gingers are your kind of thing, you’ll be glad to know that the video to opening track ‘Sacrilege’ features Lily Cole doing various things of ill repute with lots of men in caravans and then being set on fire on a beach. The endless repetition of the word “sacrilege” rolls off the tongue like honey after a while, the increasingly textured track combining with each reprise to sound increasingly frantic. It builds particularly good drumwork with a devastating guitar riff layer on layer until you’re hit with call and response, a gospel choir and tambourines that sound like they’ve been attached to the various limbs of the girl from The Exorcist.

This album is, if nothing else, one of development. Yeah Yeah Yeahs are sometimes guilty of slightly mawkish lyrics, but this album sees them maturing hugely. The collaboration with Dr Octagon on “Buried Alive” generated huge hype when it was announced. The resultant track is a labyrinthine journey of a darkness to be expected from the man who gave the world the sheer terror of 'A Visit to the Gynaecologist'. It is by no means the best track on the album, but it is good and builds on the underground feeling of 'Subway' and 'Under the Earth' to create a smear of reflective blackness through the heart of the album. 

'Always' wouldn’t sound out of place on the soundtrack to The Breakfast Club, and continues both the lovesickness and dependence on percussion of the previous tracks. It winds the album down nicely, preparing us for the small sadness of the far-away piano in closing track 'Wedding Song'. It’s a soft, gentle ending to an album that is raucous and sweetly sad in equal parts. Mosquito is the soundtrack to the nights out wish you had. It’s ice-cool but unpretentious, possibly because Yeah Yeah Yeahs aren’t faking it. It’s a hugely ambitious piece and they pull it off brilliantly. Great music speaks for itself, and this one shouts volumes.