Yeasayer: Odd Blood

Label: Secretly Canadian

Yeasayer is the rare band these days that can take more than two years to follow-up a much-loved debut and find their fans waiting and hungry (as opposed to finding them moved on to something else). Odd Blood is sure to give them plenty to chew on, opening with the bizarrely distorted “The Children,” which will have some people checking their stereo equipment, before leading right into first single “Ambling Alp,” a bright collision of glam-pop ingredients that might be partly about Joe Louis (or not, who can really say?). Odd Blood doesn’t let up — credit the band for debuting with such an odd and free-flowing sound, which means that here they can go in any multidirection they want and still sound like themselves. One song (say, “I Remember”) can foreground their romantic side, and the next (say, “O.N.E.”) can bump with Yea-funk. The group’s dedication to quirky melodies and rhythms, the kind that’d flop in other hands, binds all the disparate sounds, colors and songs. (M.L. Thrope)