With vocals dark and somewhat incomprehensible, reminiscent of those by The Knife on “We Share Our Mother’s Health”, drums methodic and cavernous, and the sound of someone rhythmically beating the crap out of a steel pipe in the background, Odd Blood’s opening song “The Children” is nothing like the rest of the album, an eclectic head-banger of an Indie-Dance album that’s guaranteed to get you off your ass, waving your hands and kicking your feet.

“Odd Blood” is Yeasayer’s (Chris Keating, Anand Wilder, and Ira Wolf Tuton) second album, their first “All Hour Cymbals” released in 2007 to huge critical acclaim was largely regarded as genre-bending, spacing gaps between genres where other bands failed to.  “Ambling Alp” you have no doubt heard somewhere, even if you don’t know it by name or association. It’s an infectious pounder with singer Chris Keating harmonising the catchiest chorus you’ll hear all year (even though it came out in 2009), lyrics straight from “Old Man Schmelling”’s words of wisdom cook book; “Now, the world can be an unfair place it at times/But your lows will have their complement of highs/If anyone should cheat, take advantage of, or beat you/Raise your head and wear your wounds with pride”. If it hasn’t already, “Ambling Alp” is sure to be remixed a thousand times over and played on dance floors across the nation.

Next up is “Madder Red”, a dense Depeche Mode-inspired ballad, rife with resonating drums and a chunky bass line that shakes through to your chest. The contagious backing vocals of Keating, Wilder, and Tuton are spread throughout, ensuring you’ll have it stuck in your head for days on end, your only reprieve being to listen to a different song on the album which in turn will have the same effect. Keating’s falsetto rears it’s beautiful and mesmerizing head on “I Remember”, a divine recollection of love in its prime; “I remember making love on a Sunday/Like throwing hearts in a fresh cut grass in May, wooah/I remember making out on an airplane/Still afraid of flying but with you I’d die today, wooah/I remember the smell of your skin forever/Love us being stupid together, wooah”. Watch out for this one being covered by someone with an acoustic guitar and it showing up in movies and TV shows (in the same vein as Iron & Wine’s cover of “Such Great Heights”), it’s an exquisite love song that deserves it’s day in the sun.

Odd Blood’s second single “O.N.E” is equally as catchy as “Ambling Alp”, a delayed guitar riff that’s played repeatedly is accompanied by a samba-like beat, taking you through the streets on a float and dancing over and over again. Another sure-fire dance floor hit and with the middle 8/outro being the album’s most Soul/Saturday Night Fever moment, when it reaches it’s end at 5:25 you’re left with only one option: Repeat. After you’ve listened to “O.N.E.” four times in a row you might want to check out the rest of the album. “Love Me Girl” and “Rome” fall flat compared to the highs of “I Remember” and “O.N.E.”, with no catchy choruses or hooks of distinction, the former employing sounds of birds that don’t quite fit in and the latter having a huge tribal drum beat and 80’s synth that work but ultimately lead to nowhere, you’d be forgiven for wanting to move on to the next track.

“Mondegreen” is a hand-clap led powerhouse, funky bass line, horns, and scratchy wailing guitar solo in tow, you start off clapping your hands along from side to side, then find yourself on your feet and flailing them out in front of you as if trying to kick a tiny invisible alien who’s after your fresh supply acorns (aliens eat acorns, right?) and end the song sitting back down and trying to catch your breath as the little alien gives up his futile attempts and whines the song away.  Album closer “Grizelda” comes and goes  from nothing into something and back again, the hand-claps sporadic, spirally synths present but hanging back as they let the child-like backing vocals and pulsating drums punch through amidst Keating’s backstage vocals.  It’s not the ending to the album I was hoping for (personally I would’ve put “Mondegreen” last) but it still fits.

“Odd Blood” is an album that may need a couple of listens before you can definitively come to a conclusion as to whether you just like it or whether you just love it.  It’s an album that’s slightly front-loaded with anthems and back-loaded with songs that many other bands would kill to have. Either way you can’t go wrong with listening to “Odd Blood” for the next six weeks straight and if you do, you’ll be glad you did. If you don’t, well then you’ll have just wasted six weeks of your life.

8.5/10

Worth checking out: Grizzly Bear, Animal Collective, MGMT

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Listen Before You Buy: “Odd Blood”