_____Prejudices are a wonderful thing. To have such a strong opinion on something without ever having experienced it for yourself, it’s just so illogically beautiful. I have one such pretty prejudice against Yeasayer. Well, sort of. I don’t dislike their music as such. And I have zero problems with how they present themselves. And it just so happens that I adore the work they’ve done with Simian Mobile Disco and Bat For Lashes. So what is it about Yeasayer that boils my blood so? It was, unsurprisingly, a girl. Ugh, girls in general tend to be the root of many evils in this world, but this girl, oh she was something unprecedented in terms of pure, undiluted darkness and soullessness.
___Much like her horned master, she cleverly appeared to me in the form of a curiously attractive being, and lured me with her almost unladylike interest in music. We talked for literally an hour, agreeing in opinion of literally every band which arose in conversation, during which I, being such a fantastic listener, took particular notice of her almost freakish fondness of Yeasayer. However, just as I finished off the last of courageous Dutch, disaster. Hurricane Katrina. Great Famine of 1741. Big-ass iceberg in middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Some well-learned scholar of music appreciation lashes on Juicebox. My face, naturally, lights up, but hers drops in a most unearthly fashion. I swear the temperature plummeted and the lights flickered as she proclaimed her uneartly hatred for The Strokes. Foolishly, I argued otherwise, which resulted in me feeling the unrestrained wrath of her Devilish slap. And ever since that night, anytime I hear 2080, or someone so much as mentions the name Yeasayer, my cheek burns and my stomach churns. Oh, and to add insult to injury, this girl, it turns out, had a boyfriend, and I had wasted an hour of my time spading her bottomless pit.
___So yeh, in my mind, Yeasayer = pain and disappointment. Or so was the case up until a while back, as today, Yeasayer = pain, disappointment, and a cool catchy song with a quirky video featuring numerous naked people.
Yeasayer - "Ambling Alp" video
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_____Following similar nakedness in recent videos from Girls, and Flaming Lips, it makes you wonder why it has become so hip all of a sudden… But that’s off the point, what’s important is that upon hearing this song, I was forced to face my demons and download their new album, Odd Blood. I re-uploaded All Hour Cymbals as well for the lulz as well, but hastily deleted it when, upon requiring space for the new Los Campesinos! album, remembered it’s about as decent as whipping your wang out in semi-public places. Its successor however, well, it’s definitely better.
___I suppose I best get the bad parts over with first, I’ll try to make it quick and painless. The Children is a terrible note to open with, Griselda a worse one to finish on, and Strange Reunions is aimless and rubbish. Surprisingly, that’s it. Somehow, only 30% of the tracks on this record could pass for something Example might have had so much as the slightest thing to do with, while the rest of them are actually pretty good.
___Soon to be second single ONE has a wonderfully chirpy edge to it, I love the strangeness of Mondegreen, and I keep getting a curiously intriguing Simon & Garfunkel vibe from Madder Red for some reason. That’s probably just me though… But I must say that it was Rome that really caught my ear, per se, and assuming the non-existence of the aforementioned Ambling Alp, it’s definitely one of my favourite songs on the record. Lastly, but certainly not leastly is Love Me Girl, a song which wouldn’t be out of place on a SMD album, which is a pretty gosh-darn high compliment coming from me.
_____Yes, it definitely wouldn’t be out of place, but it wouldn’t stand out either. And, unfortunately, for me that’s the case for Odd Blood as a whole. It’s trendy, it’s hip, and it sounds really cool, but at the end of the day, it is competing against the likes of SMD, Animal Collective, Hot Chip etc, and I’m struggling to imagine a scenario where Odd Blood could do something for me that Temporary Pleasure, or Merriweather Post Pavillion couldn’t do and more.
___I’ll probably keep it around for the time being for the likes of Ambling Alp and Rome, but come the time when I need space for the new Klaxons album, Odd Blood’s gonna be right up there amongst the candidates for the chop. Well, that’s assuming I haven’t purchased the newly-released 39th generation iPod which can hold 2.4 X 10 to some ridiculous power amount of songs by then, which is sickeningly likely knowing judging by how long that album's taken so far…
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