Rockin' Our Turntable: Yeasayer

By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 9, 2010 8:20PM

When we heard Yeasayer launch into "Madder Red" at last summer's Pitchfork Music Festival we combed through their b-sides thinking we had somehow been wrong about the band since we were in the critical minority when it came to Yeasayer's last album. When we discovered "Madder Rose" wasn't an unnoticed gem but instead a taste of what the band was cooking up for the future we began to get excited. With the release of Odd Blood we find that earlier enthusiasm entirely justified by a disc filled with songs that are more closely aligned with '80s synth-pop than the band's bucolic sonic reveries of the past. There is a thrumming life behind the new batch of tunes that is giddy and catchy without being predictable.

The album opens with the wobbly vertiginous "The Children" which would seem to portend a disc of sonic experimentation, but its follow-up, "Ambling Alp," shows the band's hand as it rests heavily on a tribal rhythm and joyous vocal line to create a slice of indie-dance pop that's impossible to resist. And if you can resist it, "Madder Red" follows and suck in everything in its path. There is no escape at this point, though "I Remember" does offer a brief respite occupying the sonic space of a new millennial John Hughes prom scene.

The album's second half gets a little weirder but no less pleasurable as it alternates between slices of more traditional sounding dance floor fare like "O.N.E." and the frenetic thrusts of "Mondegreen" or the disjointed lurch of "Strange Reunions." Yeasayer has struck out in a daring direction, unexpectedly updated their sound by turning to the past to create and album that doesn't wear out its welcome, even after weeks of repeated listening.

Odd Blood is out today.

Yeasayer will play April 29 at Metro, 3730 N Clark, 8 p.m., $16, 18+