In 2009, Yeasayer's Chris Keating surprised fans by abandoning the comfortably pastoral landscape of* All Hour Cymbals* to guest on Simian Mobile Disco’s farcical electro-house banger “Audacity of Huge.” At the time, this decision seemed unusual for a number of reasons: Here was a guy who sang “we can all grab at the chance to be handsome farmers” when indiedom was cresting peak plaid, now ironically bragging about his “Damien Hirst telephone” and “Kool-Aid swimming pool.” The lyrics were clever in an era when hipster-bashing was particularly hip (the “bag of Bill Murray” line still scans as prescient in a post-Miley/molly world), but the move added to the already-nagging suspicion that Keating and Co. were calculated trend hoppers rather than truly idiosyncratic personalities.
That narrative further congealed when* Odd Blood* positioned Yeasayer as a glossier version of MGMT (or stonier version of Empire of the Sun), but the transformation largely pleased fans: “O.N.E.” and “Ambling Alp” remain two of the band’s most successful and beloved songs. So, when* Fragrant World* dropped in 2012, it was almost a surprise that Yeasayer took another creative left turn, abandoning synth-hippie bacchanalia for a more en-vogue, minimalistic sound. (Their lyrics, however, remained a similar mixture of oblique references, social commentary, and love songs.) Four years later, the band now has a chance to take stock of its motley career and reset expectations once again. And to their credit, Amen & Goodbye may be the first time the band has doubled down on its weirdest impulses. The result is an ambitious psychedelic quasi-concept record that is refreshingly (sometimes bizarrely) out of step with current trends, occasionally baffling, but mostly unsuccessful.
Nowhere is Yeasayer’s latest iteration better crystallized than “I Am Chemistry,” a psych-pop opus that, given the title and sartorial stylings of the band, you might assume is about drugs, but is actually—possibly literally—about toxic chemicals. (Keating sings, “A C4H10FO2P puts you on your knees,” listing out the molecular structure of Sarin gas.) This could be another instance of Yeasayer attempting to get political (see: "Reagan's Skeleton”) or an extended analogy about a troubled relationship. But "chemicals weapons = bad" is hardly a nuanced worldview and neither is identifying emotional instability with DDT. Worse, is the song's clunky sexual imagery. The words, “She only needs my help pleasuring herself beneath the rue leaves,” are sung with a vague John Lennon impersonation that the band returns to throughout the album.
Sonically, things aren’t any more coherent. The chorus to "I Am Chemistry"—big and syrupy—plays like an outdated bid for alt-rock radio play, but it clashes with the other discordant elements in the arrangement. Surprisingly pleasant, however, is the bridge, sung by The Roches member Suzzy Roche, which sounds like something Pink Floyd would have stitched into the fabric of a mid-’70s arena anthem, but it doesn’t jive with the otherwise slick production.
Other tracks are rarely more lucid, but just as ardent. “Gerson’s Whistle” is a keyboard-driven rocker that mixes elements of Yeasayer’s early-career folk harmonies (“Can you hear / There is something in the darkness”) with a vocal melody that heads into Californication-era Red Hot Chili Peppers territory. It makes you wonder what type of listeners the band is trying to court—possibly all of them? "Uma," a ballad that reaches for emotional resonance, comes off only as a treacly Beatles knockoff. However, "Cold Night," the most straightforward song on the album, is a simple pleasure. Rather than pile on historical or philosophical allusions, the lyrics are straightforward and immediate. "I regret all the times I didn't respond to you," goes one mournful statement, a sentiment we can all identify with.
According to the band, Amen & Goodbye was recorded in the Catskills, where the band attempted to return to a less digitally-saturated existence and there’s certainly an argument to be made that Amen & Goodbye is about the strife between contemporary technology and spirituality. But with songs that play like a grab-bag of genres and lyrics that have little of the humor or self-awareness the band displayed in the past, it's hard to muster the patience to uncover anything deeper. Amen & Goodbye plays as a sincere attempt at recreate the type of album that the band loved from decades past—meandering, experimental, uncompromising. This may seem interesting to the members of Yeasayer, but listeners will be left wondering where the band's interest in pop economy went. But the audacity, it should be noted, is huge.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Suzzy Roche is a sibling of Rufus Wainwright.
