'Tis the season for giving, and New York art-rock outfit the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have collected their under-the-tree points early. The trio is offering fans a yuletide gift that comes complete with rock-approved jingle bells and the hippest set of fa la la las you're likely to hear this winter.

No doubt about it, this week belonged to newly-minted President-Elect Barack Obama. But that doesn't mean the music world lay dormant: Fall Out Boy, Smashing Pumpkins, and the Decemberists all kicked off their respective U.S. tours, while the Killers treated fans to new tracks in London.

Listen up, Yeah Yeah Yeahs fans: Expect the unexpected! The New York rockers are in the studio working on their third effort -- and according to the band themselves, it sounds like nothing they've ever done before.

New supergroup development! Brian Chase, drummer for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Colin Stetson, touring saxophonist for the Arcade Fire, and Stuart Bogie and Jordan McLean, Antibalas' tenor saxophone and trumpet player, respectively, have joined Balkan Beat Box guitarist Jeremiah Lockwood for the Sway Machinery, whose self-titled debut EP is set to arrive September 16 via JDub.

It "smells like record three" for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who have retreated from their metropolitan abodes to the countryside to record the follow up to 2006's Show Your Bones. Why? Well, leave it to the trio to shed a little light: