Album Review: Yeasayer - Fragrant World

24 August 2012 | 4:51 pm | Brendan Telford

Fragrant World is exactly that – a new realm overcome with sounds that bombard the senses.

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New York experimental pop voyagers Yeasayer have crafted an idiosyncratic career out of making obtuseness seem mainstream. Through the popularity of intricate releases All Hour Cymbals (2007) and Odd Blood (2010), the trio have used the backbone of conventional balladry, fleshed it out with electronic eccentricities and nuances, and the result has been inexplicably accessible. On third album Fragrant World, they've endeavoured to spread the palette even further afield, and the result, once more, is surprisingly immersive.

The first noted difference on Fragrant World is the lack of a stand-alone single – each track informs the ones that bookend it and vice versa. Some detractors will see this as a decline, yet in the age of bite-size attention spans, the desire to create a complete album is admirable. And whilst on previous efforts there has been an element of familiarity, this feels like a concerted effort to create a uniquely Yeasayer product. That isn't to say it wholly gels – the twitchy R&B of Longevity doesn't live up to its name (especially when Twin Shadow does this kind of thing standing on his head), and some tracks bear down on you with their overtly busy electronics – but the missteps aren't irredeemable either, thus making the successes all the more poignant. When they dabble in kosmische on Damaged Goods, include an awkward multi-layered percussion that informs Fingers Never Bleed or Daft Punk wizardry inherent on the excellent Henrietta, the band show themselves to be growing exponentially, in both ability and potential.

Fragrant World is exactly that – a new realm overcome with sounds that bombard the senses.