Yeasayer: All Hour Cymbals
Label: We Are Free
It’s only fitting that Yeasayer should be at the bottom of this list, given that the year has ended with this delightful album sweeping our hearts. All Hour Cymbals has one of the freshest sounds we’ve heard all year, a delightful mix of indie hooks and bold rhythms, recalling some of the experimental work of Peter Gabriel and Talking Heads a generation ago. The album’s shining moment, “2080,” captures everything special about Yeasayer, with lush choruses, fiery chants and inventive polyrhythms. The sweet sounds are sometimes belied by the dark, nihilistic undertones of the lyrics, but that just makes the album more interesting. And with the heavy, crunching guitars in “Wait for the Wintertime,” the band can rock aplenty too.
