Music: Dance dance revolution

Depending on how well you like it, you can either credit or blame frontwoman Karen O for the more electronic, dance-oriented sound on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' new album, "It's Blitz."

So says guitarist Nick Zinner, who butted heads with the vocalist and nearly split up the band during the making of their last record, 2006's "Show Your Bones."

"Karen didn't have much interest in revisiting the 'Fever to Tell' angst and violence style, just because she'd already done it," Zinner recalled by phone from his home last week -- doing his last bit of laundry before hitting the road for a tour that lands Saturday in Minneapolis at First Avenue.

"Fever to Tell" was the New York trio's 2003 debut record, a truly feverish, ferocious album that produced such gems as the roaring rocker "Date With the Night" and the pulsating hit "Maps" (now featured in the "Rock Band" video game). The follow-up record mellowed a bit, but not much, and its sameness apparently produced discontent within the band, which also features drummer Brian Chase (there's no bassist).

"It felt unnatural to Karen to approach things that way again," Zinner said. "That was how she was feeling, so the challenge was for Brian and I to kind of match where she was going."

Zinner said the band -- which formed around New York University in 2000 -- smoothed out its personal beefs during its 2006 tour and the making of the interim EP, "Is Is."

"It might sound trite, but it's true: Playing music together and getting the response from the crowd got us back to the true nature of what we're doing and why we're doing it," he said.

"After all that, it felt like we could do anything."

Hence the bold change-up on "It's Blitz," already one of the best-reviewed albums of 2009. It opens with Karen bellowing/beckoning, "Shake it, like a ladder up to the sun" in the whirring single "Zero." By disc's end, she and the boys provide ample cause to follow her instructions and storm the dance floor, from the New Order-meets-Blondie gem "Heads Will Roll" to the choppy and tribal "Dull Life."

The album also features some surprisingly elegant and pristine piano/synth ballads, including "Skeletons," which sounds as unnerving and edgy as the "Fever to Tell" material, despite the mellower style.

" 'Zero' and 'Skeletons' were the first two songs for this record written on keyboard, and that really shaped things to come," recalled Zinner, who also plays the keys. "Those songs came immediately and very easily, which is always a good sign. That's when we felt inspired to go in that direction."

Keeping a healthy distance

"We wanted to go to places where we could just isolate ourselves and try things and not have urban obligations," Zinner explained. "We experimented at the one in Massachusetts for a while, which was good but it was also during a blizzard totally cooped up. We started to go crazy. The place outside of El Paso, it was one of the most inspiring parts of the country I've ever been in, having all that open space and total concentration on doing music."

The Yeah Yeahs Yeahs themselves are now spread out across the country, with O living in Los Angeles for the past several years. The distance, Zinner said, is a good thing: "If we were in New York and always together in a practice space, this band would definitely be broken up."

They're getting along great, though, and he continues to marvel at how O -- one of rock's most vital, charismatic performers -- transforms herself when she hits the stage.

"The words 'night and day' come to mind," he said. "That's definitely true of a lot of performers who might seem extremely outgoing and gregarious on stage, and then offstage they're more shy and awkward people. That's definitely Karen."