Oh My Rockness

People sure have been yapping a lot about Yeasayer lately, and it's easy to hear why. This band creates completely melodic music meant for a different era. The Brooklyn quartet's songs sound like they could be the lost outtakes from Fleetwood Mac's Rumours album, or b-sides for Chicago's Live at Carnegie Hall album (way before Peter Cetera started singing all those radio love songs).

The band mixes elements of psych, pop and classic rock to create a novel sound that sounds distinctively, well, old. Like somewhere between the years 1971-1977. When Yeasayer really gets their groove going, they border on becoming a "jam band," but luckily they always pull back into the chorus before things get too instrumentally epic.

This band is certainly not the first contemporary group to tap into this golden age of musical pop history (their tour-mates Akron/Family, Cave Singers and Grizzly Bear also kind of do it, too), but so far they do it the "catchiest."

Published 09/20/07