Yeasayer

Stereo: By the time we get to “ONE,” though, “you don’t move me anymore.” But, thing is, this one has the most movement to it — a joyful, riotous hand-drum Caribbean feel complete with another Bee Gees breakdown. It’s more spacey yearning on “Love Me Girl” which has an after-hours vibe even beyond the repeat entreaties to “stay up and play with me.” It’s maybe the strangest of the more straight-up songs: We get robo voices, steam-pipe percussion, a rattling Blade Runner interlude, more disco, and even a moment of what sounds like a coyote making his call against a starry western backdrop. After this, the album shifts, or perhaps dips, according to your predilection.

The toe-tapping “Rome” rattles forward, but in a less interesting way than the earlier tracks: It has rhythm and propulsion, but feels a bit empty. Yeasayer got folks hooked early on with “2080,” a song that started floating around long before we even knew what the band looked like, so when those sort of harmonies disappear in favor of pure texture, a bit of the appeal drops-out, too. Each of these latter songs = cool incidentals. Just not great individual songs.

Vegan: nada

Bear: nada

Fork (6.1): The rest of the album suffers from a major identity crisis-- few of the various far-flung ideas it explores pan out, and most of them wind up overcooked. On the whole, the record alternates between a prog-rock version of 80s UK synth-pop (and those are the good songs) and dreadlocky alt-pop or yuppie-era world music imitations (aaaand... those are the bad ones). Songs like "Rome" or "Love Me Girl" aim for ambitious sprawl but just wind up muddy, while the ballads "Strange Reunions" and "Grizelda" seem plodding and congested. The more in need of editing the music gets, the weaker the lyrics become: "Mondegreen" is the worst offender, with Keating chanting "Everybody's talking about me and my baby makin' love 'til the morning light" ad nauseum over shamanistic electro-boogie. (But you knew that-- I mean, everybody's talking about it.)

StereoVeganBearFork: The first half of the record is good. Buy it. Green light.

StereoVeganBearFork agrees .. .. with everyone else.

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