Albums Review: Yeasayer - Odd Blood (3/5)

Odd Blood is the second album from Brooklyn, New York, based Yeasayer. I'd never heard of them before, but this album is getting a fair amount of attention, so I decided to give it mine.

I like about half this album, and then the other half I find either too strange or too tedious for my taste. The first half of the album is generally where the best songs are found. After opener "The Children," which features a creepy distorted vocal and clattering production, the next four songs are quite good. They generally recall an early-to-mid-'80s new wave sound, particularly synth-heavy "Ambling Arp" and delightfully joyous "O.N.E.," which is their latest single. This song has an upbeat rhythm and an appealingly bubbly synth refrain. Drenched-in-synths "I Remember" sounds like a lost early '90s Erasure ballad. "Madder Red" goes for something a little more moody and grand.

It's a shame that things take a turn for the worse on the second half, particularly on "Rome" and "Mondegreen," which I find to be way too repetitive, to an annoying degree. Closing track "Grizelda" is a strange song, scored with gratingly long-held horn notes that remind me of dial tones and hand claps that recall the world music-ish sound of Vampire Weekend. After its way too long mostly instrumental opening, "Moody Girl," which is appropriately moody and recalls old school Depeche Mode, isn't bad. Neither is Middle Eastern-inspired "Strange Reunions," but neither of these songs reach the heights of the handful of tracks that make the first half great.

Best: O.N.E., Ambling Arp, Madder Red, I Remember