Karen O gives great head. Or you would assume so, if you’ve ever witnessed her on-stage microphone fellatio party trick. She also gives great EP.

Six years after it all began for Karen, drummer Brian Chase, and guitarist Nick Zinner with their self-titled five-track, they release ‘Is Is’. But where ‘Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ was incendiary new material, ‘Is Is’ is reheated old stuff. Songs for the EP were originally penned in 2004 as the band toured first album Fever To Tell.

It tells you something of the calibre of that release’s follow-up that these were left off Show Your Bones. Not that it hasn’t stopped the trio playing them live, although they “GUARANTEE YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD THEM LIKE THIS BEFORE”. It’s a cliché, but that’s because it’s true: the old ones really are the best ones after all.
(4½/5)