They say that you’re often your own worst enemy, and on Yeasayer’s fourth album ‘Amen & Goodbye’, this couldn’t ring any more true. As clear proponents of higher order thinking and complex contemplation, Yeasayer’s attempt to legitimise religious allegories and disillusionment towards deities with experimental breakdowns and needless instrumentals ends up being detrimental to the already diverse, individually interesting sonic arrangements at play. In a clumsy, trite way, ‘Amen & Goodbye’ unknowingly raises commentary on another philosophical idea – intelligence is a meaningless virtue without clear delivery and appropriate execution.
Yeasayer’s beauty over their storied career has always been in the band’s ability to strike a happy compromise between heady themes and wild sonic experimentation. Diehard fans and even casual fans probably all hold “O.N.E” and “Ambling Alp” up as personal watershed moments. That magnetic eccentricity remains on ‘Amen & Goodbye’, but the melodic appeal and accessibility within the unheard and unknown is jarringly vacant this time. This is not an ode to nostalgia or an attempted manifesto signalling artistic progression. “O.N.E” and “Ambling Alp” represent Yeasayer’s unheralded potential, while ‘Amen & Goodbye’ positions the band as distant secluded geniuses who have a hard time convincing you of the sincerity within their brilliance. Take “I Am Chemistry”, for example; it’s an odd concoction of synths and glitchy percussion that manages to retain a pop sensibility and intriguing energy even amidst the dense scientific allusions, self-harming breakdowns and obnoxious hooks. “I Say It Again / I Am Chemistry” just isn’t intriguing in its defiant subjectivity, and it’s nowhere near a raucous crowd inducing sing-along either. There’s so much present within the track’s five minutes, most of which percolates merely as a façade; a propagated image flashing across our eyes. If this was an experiment in rampant arrangements and synthetic totality, then Yeasayer has succeeded – but unfortunately, “I Am Chemistry” is an attempt at thematic insertion that displaces and isolates instead.
With that in mind, the production, execution and audial arrangements on “Amen & Goodbye” are too palpably interesting, pretty and downright fun to pass off. The kicker – which is unknowingly repeated – is that there’s a very apparent presence of cognitive dissonance between the lyrics and soundscapes across the album. It’s so apparent that the album may have even worked better as an entirely instrumental body of work, alluding to a bleak, otherworldly image rather than viscerally suggesting such. ‘Amen & Goodbye’s’ most solid and continuous run of playful, expansive arrangements begins with “I Am Chemistry” and ends with “Dead Sea Scrolls” – a track that could be best described as an alien’s attempt at blending Motown, pop and Elvis Costello. With its staccato vocal delivery, horn instrumentals, eerie synth hollows and almost tongue-in-cheek guitar solo, “Dead Sea Scrolls” vibrates as ‘Amen & Goodbye’s’ perfect compromise. It’s relatable in its silliness, epitomised in the emphatically buoyant harmonies. The lyrics are delightfully sparse and suggestively theological, and the glossy production highlights Yeasayer’s inherently twisted magnetism.
These moments of intrigue are unfortunately short-lived, with the band exasperating their obnoxious ideas both thematically and sonically as the album flails towards its conclusion. There are two needless instrumental interludes – “Computer Canticle 1” and “Child Prodigy” – the latter of which consists of sparse clapping and a harpsichord. It’s a subtle inference to Beethoven perhaps, but even if this were the case, it’s generally irrelevant and overly indulgent. The overuse of ideas and experimentation is not only present within these moments, but also in the actual track they bookend. “Divine Simulacrum” is severely disjointed, and it fails to amount to the sum of its parts. There are undercurrents of warped synths, rolling percussion and ominous harmonies, which act as oil to water next to the lyrics. “She’s Divine Simulacrum / She’s divine / She was made for you” is confusing and nonsensical, denoting that the representation of a potential interest was specifically made for whoever the “you” is directed at. This kind of thematic disconnect only strengthens a recurring unofficial motif for ‘Amen & Goodbye’; Yeasayer are seemingly interested in presenting the idea of intelligence, opting for intellectual vernacular and brevity instead of informed depth. This all comes off as a flimsy outer layer and another failed attempt at their initial thematic extrapolation.
It’s not until the album’s penultimate song “Cold Night” that the looking glass into the albums self-aware existential core is entirely unveiled. Here Yeasayer are at their most relatable, and it comes as no surprise that this comes into play when the production is decidedly stripped back and the lyrics are cryptically subtle but direct in their delivery. It’s a heartbreaking song, potentially about the suicide of a loved one. Vocalist Chris Keating paints the subjects demise in a gut-wrenchingly poetic, euphemistically human way – “It’s been one year since you turned yourself back into dust”. As the track draws to a close, Keating croons, “Was there something I could’ve told you?”, fractured in his wavering intonations as harmonies bubble underneath. The album then closes with the title track, a fitting conclusion to this brief, relatable two-part act.
‘Amen & Goodbye’ exists as an artistic phenomenon of sublime glimpses of thematic development and progressive, interesting arrangements, but its strongest moments are filtered through a cantankerous, volatile spectrum of cloudy, undeveloped ideas.
6.8/10
Pre-order ‘Amen & Goodbye’ (out April 1st) here and check out “I Am Chemistry” below: