Through all the genre-saturation hullabaloo generated by the Internet, there are two veins of sound most poised to identify themselves as the namesake of the current decade-plus in music history. Animal Collective's digitalized experimentation has the most followers in both bands and fans, and its very literal technology-bound soundscape makes it an easy candidate for the title; but bands like TV on the Radio make a bold statement for a different form of otherworldly inventiveness, one not tied to the blips and bloops we associate with our own technological progress. And it's in this second vein that Yeasayer find themselves on their latest, Odd Blood.
After an album of undefined if not misdirected psychedelia, Yeasayer finally seem to have figured themselves out. For the first time, Odd Blood contains songs that sound distinctively like Yeasayer, finally making the unique band marketable to an audience that demands a provocative thesis amidst a sea of ambiguity and fence-straddling crowd pleasers. But don't approach Odd Blood as the band's fully fleshed dissertation, because it isn't where Yeasayer is, but rather where they're going that matters most.
Not quite percussive enough to count as tribal, Odd Blood shows Yeasayer as an almost gregarious gathering, the way Middle Eastern rhythms would be re-created by new colonies on the Moon. The melodies aren't created by any one or two instruments, but rather by the aura around the songs themselves. Caribbean instruments play sounds of the orient, and the bass and guitar backbone shake and quiver with such confidence that, despite their twisted production and multicultural methods, songs like ""O.N.E."" actually sound organic.
The stone-age futurism hits hardest on the standout lead single ""Ambling Alp."" The song segues through a cave past the dripping waterfalls and space-rock stalactites before the entire ceremony reveals itself in a melodious stupor. A picture's worth a thousand words, and the imagery of Yeasayer's actualized potential is evocative enough to negate the need for much else.
And that's a good thing, because lyrically they don't give us much to chew on. Lead singer Chris Keating has made no attempt to hide that he's usually singing about nothing, or that the lyrics are to be taken more as hallucinogenic enhancements than substantial entities in themselves. But this disregard creates a tenuous balance whose high risk/high reward nature stems from the fact that they're playing a zero-sum game with their instruments.
The sonic imagery captured on Odd Blood is striking, but vivid snapshots are one of music's most elusive commodities, and the fact that they're treading through uncharted territory becomes painfully obvious during the longer stretches of the album. Ultimately, the weightlessness of the space age's zero gravity shows through, leaving the album's staying power and ultimate impact on the course of music history suspect. ""Mondegreen"" turns out to be a dead end that the band knows better than to re-visit; ""Rome"" becomes surprisingly familiar, as if the group wasn't quite ready to leave their comfort zone completely, and ""Strange Reunions"" is painfully self-descriptive—even in the future, things can be awkward.
But what makes Odd Blood worth hearing is how un-awkward Yeasayer can be. On ""Madder Red,"" guitarist Anand Wilder mourns, ""It's getting harder to pretend I'm worth your time,"" but this isn't something to get so worked up about. Odd Blood covers a lot of uncharted territory, and we can't expect Yeasayer to be our tour guides when even they're still getting their footing. The strong fragments of Odd Blood are enough to suggest that the potholes and trivial filler are only regrettable growing pains for otherwise commendable pioneers doing a lot of dirty work for our benefit. As a live outfit, Yeasayer far surpass the sounds they commit to wax, and it's worth acknowledging that while Odd Blood might not encompass the exact ends they wanted, as long as Yeasayer keep their sights on the innovative and grandiose, they're on the verge of something much, much bigger.
