Culture Blues

Music: “Odd Blood” – Yeasayer

Look, I completely understand that the new vanguard all live in Brooklyn, wear Three Wolves Howling at the Moon t-shirts, and ride bikes. Naturally, this neo-hippie chic is leading to an overwhelming trend in psychedelic-pop/experimental/worldbeat-loving white kids making music. Some of these groups are amazing (you already know who they are), and some of them are awful (your friend is in one); Yeasayer lands somewhere better than in the middle (that is NOT a Wallflowers allusion). A three piece with an impressive amount of buzz, Yeasayer made their initial mark after some successful slots at SxSW in '07. Since then they have toured with MGMT (whose new record drops 4/13) and Beck, conquered all the festivals worth conquering, and made it onto all sorts of "emerging artists" lists. In the heady days of 2008, the band described their sound as "Middle Eastern-psych-snap-gospel", which was a summation of their sound on their debut LP All Hour Cymbals (a very solid yet somewhat derivative record). It is safe to say after having heard their newest effort, Odd Blood, over a dozen times (more than any other record in any review process thus far) that they have to add the word "80s" to their self description.

The reason I had to listen to this record so many times is because it is a tough one to decipher; when it was good I could never really tell if they where doing it from passion or by numbers, when it was bad I could never tell if it was the composition's fault or the production. This was a downright maddening enigma of an album that for the first four tracks had me thinking it was verging on great, then shattered those expectations with its subsequent cuts. Odd Blood begins with The Children, a lurching industrial thumper with a different take on auto-tune that feels like an ominous herald to a murky and mysterious record (one that I really wanted to listen to). The transition from The Children to Ambling Alp is surprisingly smooth, although the songs themselves could not be any more different; here we see Yeasayer morphing into an uber-80s incarnation of the band that some knew and loved. The blogosphere is rife with stories about the new direction, the Tears for Fears comparisons have been made, some fans have even cried for boycotts; I think that such a reaction is a little extreme. We are, after all, talking about a band that has only released one LP (they are allowed to change), and (more importantly) the influence was kind of always there. Nevertheless, the record still holds together after Ambling Alps for the next two songs; Madder Red could definitely play in the background of an old-school Tom Cruise movie, and I Remember is probably the song that manages to work out the 80's thing best, while still maintaining a contemporary vibe.

What happens next almost verges on disaster at times. Peter Gabriel was never really my thing; I understand his relevance and contributions to music, but does he really need to be converged with The Miami Sound Machine, Depeche Mode and A.C.? The short answer is no (however, if that is your thing, stop reading and go get Odd Blood right now... then, come back and finish reading). Sure, there are moments when you can see a few slivers of cleverness in songs like Strange Reunions or Grizelda, but they can't make up for the shortcomings of a track like One or the horror-show that is Love Me Girl (awful). The second half of Odd Blood makes the first few tracks feel like a cruel joke, a joke that isn't even that good, a joke not worth repeating.

To say that I am disappointed by this record would imply that I had some sort of expectation of greatness... I really didn't, this isn't a Muse situation. I do know, however, that there are a lot of frustrated Yeasayer fans out there. To them I say, they are allowed to change, even if for the worse.