Odd Blood

Mischievous from the word go, Yeasayer's second album Odd Blood opens with a musical red herring. With its clunky electronics, cow bells and slo-mo vocals, The Children sounds like a nasty 1970s Peter Gabriel single played at 33rpm. It's best taken as a palate cleanser, providing a clear break between the stately mystique of their debut All Hour Cymbals and the unashamedly crowd-pleasing yet deceptively complex remainder of the new album.

When Yeasayer debuted in 2007 with All Hour Cymbals, they were a Brooklyn art-pop group intriguingly out of step with their peers. They carried an air of mystery and surprise, and at their best ("2080", "Sunrise") managed to make offbeat mysticism and off-kilter pop music seem attractive and exciting. They were basically a rootsy, classic rock-ish version of MGMT then. Their fate seemed doubly sealed by "Tightrope", their laser-focused and damn near best-in-show con tribution to the all-star charity compilation Dark Was the Night.