Album: Yeasayer, Fragrant World (Mute)

The Brooklyn trio Yeasayer’s follow-up to Odd Blood
continues that album’s maverick electropop slant, blending cool,
melismatic vocals with crunchy electro grooves and elastic synth
lines on tracks like “Fingers Never Bleed” and “Henrietta”.

But elsewhere, they have a tendency to bury songs such as “Devil And The Deed” and “No Bones” underneath brittle, staccato bricolages of sound, in which every element is percussive, and barely any melodic.

The results are too often the musical equivalent of actionpainting by machines, lacking the slinky charm required for funk except in isolated moments like “Blue Paper” and “Damaged Goods”, which sounds like it was played on a fairground calliope. A frustrating experience overall.

Download: Fingers Never Bleed; Henrietta; Blue Paper