Yeasayer - Odd Blood

Yeasayer’s biggest strength is also their only downfall: Enthusiasm. There’s a childishness, and keen eye for experimentation that belies ‘Odd Blood’; a perhaps over-appreciation of thinking outside of the box. Whilst bottled up with potential pop hits, the occasional blip comes in the form of something so blatantly on the brink of brilliance, but just a whisker away. 

But let’s concentrate on the fact that ‘Odd Blood’ is indeed a fantastic album. In ‘O.N.E’, your hairs stand up, your feet tingle and you envisage the summer of your life; in ‘Madder Red’ your arms sway and your eyes weigh under emotion; in ‘Ambling Alp’, you suffer an involuntary spell of screaming; “Stick up for yourself, son!” to the point at which your neighbours never speak to you again. Its moments are among the finest of the year and yes, occasionally, there’s a tendency in the band to try too hard but compress its strengths into one, compressed selection and you have yourself something rather special.

There are also, quite crucially, times at which the band show restraint and succeed in doing so; opener ‘The Children’ weirds out the listener but at its heart is an imaginative melody and ‘Strange Reunions’ re-ignites the cultured spark of debut ‘All Hour Cymbals’ and produces something more mature. ‘Odd Blood’ is a remarkable achievement and the frustrating thing - also the most enticing thing - is that more is within this band. [JM]