Odd Blood

Odd Blood by Yeasayer

Odd Blood is the sophomore release from the Brooklyn band Yeasayer who had a meteoric rise to fame in 2007 after playing at South by Southwest. The band released their debut album "All Hour Cymbals" the same year which was given rave reviews by almost all of the major music magazines, and even found it's way into Pitchfork's Top 200 albums of the 2000's. All of this is a lot to digest for a band who just put out their first full length record not even three years ago, and now here they are with their second album with a large amount of hype behind them. I wish I could say that this album met the expectations that I had for it, but Odd Blood was just that...a bit odd.

The album starts out with an eerily voiced intro called "The Children" and jumps right into "Ambling Alp", which I'll admit is one hell of a song. Ambling Alp personifies what Yeasayer is doing right with their music, it's an insanely catchy song that still has substance and an underlying goodness about it ("Stick up for yourself son, nevermind what anybody else does"...come on, how can you NOT want to yell that out with your windows down in the car). However, if the rest of the album kept up with the pace of Ambling Alp, or at least channeled some of it's energy then the album would be mindblowingly amazing, instead it just ends up being a bit lackluster. Ambling Alp, instead of setting the tone for the rest of the album, just ends up usurping everything that comes after that and makes it all feel a bit out of place. Every song following just feels like it's trying to recreate the magic of the first album and failing. This doesn't mean that the entire album is bad though, I can't stress that enough. If this album was their debut instead of their sophomore release then it would probably be more well received, but much more was expected from this young band.

Songs like "I Remember" and "ONE" still standout very heavily on the album and if it weren't for the awkward attempts at R&B rhythms in the verses of "Love Me Girl" then that song would be included as well, seeing as the chorus is absolutely addicting. However, lyrics such as "Stay up in bed with me, Stay up and play with me" just bring down the song as a whole. The album as a whole isn't bad per say, but it's nothing outstanding either. When this album has good moments they are definitely good (Ambling Alps is one of my favorite songs of the year so far), but the lows are just the same.

Rating: 7.5/10

Standout Tracks: Ambling Alps, I Remember, ONE, Rome