nahsayer

One of my most anticipated album releases of the year was the Yeasayear album Odd Blood. Early last year I became addicted to their dark was the night offering "tightrope", and read subsequent articles that the song was to be on the new album. In my head this formulated to 10 to 12 songs of equally amazing quality.

Further eagerness came from the review of the album's first single Ambling Alp. Unfortunately this remains to me the brightest star in an otherwise less illuminating body of work.

My biggest issues with the album is that yeasayer lost the edge I liked so much in their previous effort. The jagged sentiments that encased songs about love and relationships gave a unique presence to what would be an otherwise typical pop electronica album.

And essentially that is what I see Odd Blood being. Outside of a few tracks most of the work here is electronica infused pop sentimentality. Gone are the deep riffs, and strangled howls, replaced with gimmicky keyboard solos, and honey drenched choruses.

Don't get me wrong. The album isn't terrible. I listened and enjoyed, but almost immediately I could tell the album would get tired quick. And less than two weeks later Odd Blood has already began to collect the metaphorical dust. Looking back I get the exact same reaction that I had to the tapes n' tapes follow up ... which i can't remember the name of off hand, and when I tried to look it up on my ipod only found the loon, and the self titled ep ... which i think pretty much exactly fucking sums up what i'm getting at about odd blood.

Anyways, i still have never succeeded in developing an acceptable rating system, so i'm going to continue to stay away from that, and instead just say not bad, not great.

Also, maybe now I should take the opportunity to suggest other start expressing their thoughts to me about these reviews. Not on my writing, but on the actual albums. Maybe i'm missing something. Maybe I can go back to the album thinking about it in another frame of mind. Help me enjoy this more!!!