Hearing all the hype for the new Yeasayer album made me remember what little time I spent with their first album, All Hour Cymbals. Yeasayer is a psychedelic band from Brooklyn, and originally sounded like a much poppier version of Gang Gang Dance or a much more trippy version of TV On The Radio. All Hour Cymbals now reminds me (in the best parts) of 2009’s most under-appreciated act Here We Go Magic, which released their soft-spoken debut this year. It’s a well-executed and yet stubbornly unobjectionable psych rock album. Great for fans (and you may well become one!), but yesterday’s news for many others.
Now that the kids are going with the dance music, crossover success for an “experimental” band like Yeasayer means including electronic beats a la Animal Collective, which the lead single Ambling Alp does fairly well. The rest of the album follows in this vein by focusing on tight song structures that allow for experimental (and increasingly electronic) flourishes. If this album signals anything, it’s the arrival of post-Animal Collective indie music, which is at once accessible and experimental, sonically diverse yet technically focused on a pop aesthetic. It’s appropriate that it arrive at the beginning of 2010, as this firmly cements Animal Collective’s reputation as one of the most influential indie acts of the past decade, and decidedly thrusts the door open for a whole new generation of post-AC popsters. This is sure to hit big with the critics as did similar efforts from Dirty Projectors and the aforementioned Animal Collective this past year. And it should. It’s good. Above all, it’s a danceable freakshow, which is my favorite kind! Tracks like Ambling Alp, One, Mondegreen, and Rome will make you dance all jumpy-like and simply beg for remix treatment, while slower movers are lyrically interesting enough to keep you listening closely until the next beat kicks in. My bet is that 2010 will be a good year for Yeasayer.
