For whatever reason, wanting to go pop and rocking your indie foundation is a sin punishable by having heaps of shit talked about whatever skills you may have stepped-up in order to appeal to wider audiences–even if those very skills are things we all love. Conceived with the mindset of crafting a sound that will become your next favorite record, Yeasayer’s second album, Odd Blood, will make many of those “don’t tell me who you love, but show me” critics hurl pejoratives from their ivory tower. While it almost goes without staying that every band’s aspiration is to ingeniously pique the interest of their listeners by reinventing old elements and coupling them with new and creative tones, it seems this record’s goal is not necessarily to go without saying, but say it all in the fewest possible breaths.

In theory, the record, pulling from both ’80s synth-pop constructs and its experimental arrangement, approaches its themes in such a way that it would be an inevitable pop smash. Why is it then, that with all of these irrefutably enjoyable elements that this sophomore effort comes off more as an awkwardly self-aware attempt at commercialism than a genuine artistic venture?

Departing from dynamics toyed with on their debut, All Hour Cymbals (We Are Free 2007), Yeasayer announced that they deliberately wished to make a break from their former sound. Not holistically abandoning what David Malitz referred to as “Middle Eastern-psych-snap-gospel” and many others celebrated as a refreshing mixture of world rhythms and roving progressions, the Yea opted to keep the drums that help amplify the peaks and troughs of their sometimes exercised vocals and to intensity the melodies with uniformly spastic electric warbles and chirps.

These vocal and rhythmic patters, still acting as the brace of the structure on the record, are thrown into a swarming mixture of references from late ’80s synth jams. The hop-scotching pulse from “Love Me Girl” and the decaying whines at the end of “Modegreen” recall some of the biggest influences from the “Power Decade”–Wham! and New Order being the strongest. The sincerity of Chris Keating’s pleading vocals ironically seem not to seek forgiveness, but demand acceptance for their risk. “Ambling Alp” and “Madder Red” don’t counter these references, and awkwardly embrace a feeling of risk, assuring us that they are fully aware of the cheese they lather on, but hope that their attitude will leave all forgiven.

“One,” the largest statement on the record, makes up in honesty for what it lacks in slight of hand. Anand’s vocals, less lofty than Chris’s, slam the square peg into the more obvious opening, exclaiming how corny the whole process can be, but that we all knew what we were signing on for in the beginning. This is the Odd Blood that we can all relate too, that we’re all familiar with, and was so strange that it’s uncomfortably familiar.

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