We Can’t Explain it, But Yeasayer’s ‘Amen & Goodbye’ Just Works

Brooklyn art rock band Yeasayer have poured their heart and soul into their new album ‘Amen & Goodbye’. The album is a frantic rollercoaster that doesn’t flow but instead ignites a raw mix of kruft rock, folk tunes, a hint of pop rock and basically whatever they felt like creating.

After the release of their last album ‘Fragrant World’, Yeasayer members Chris Keating, Ira Wolf Tuton and Anand Wilder were suffering from an identity crisis.

“We had toured so much over the previous eight years and we were a little burnt out. We’ve always tried to evolve as artists, to take risks instead of repeating old formulas,” said Yeasayer.

We’ve always tried to evolve as artists, to take risks instead of repeating old formulas

The title ‘Amen & Goodbye’ might sound like the band’s closing statement, but it’s not.  Instead it’s them recalibrating what it means to be a recording artists in today’s world. Not as a gang of three guys, but as three men with new families and altering perspectives.

What makes the album truly special is Yeasayer have had fun with it. They haven’t set any rules for themselves, instead they’ve created a quirky masterpiece. Where each song is a standalone piece that ends up coming together in an eclectic way to form an almost out of body experience.

“It’s the most collaborative and multifaceted record we’ve done. We’ve tested the boundaries of what we’ve done before, but we’ve gone deeper than on any other album. We have arrangements that go from stripped-back to incredibly lush in a moment. It’s been a real exploration, and we all get off on that,” said Yeasayer.

The album keeps you guessing at every point. It’s one of those albums that you have to listen to too understand what we’re talking about.

It can’t be explained, but it’s more a feeling of confusion because of how random the assortments of sounds are, but it just works. At some points we were checking our headphones and laptops to see if it was working properly and other times we felt like investigators trying to solve a puzzle.

Basically in short, just listen to it. The album comes out Friday 1 April. In the mean time take a listen to their most recent single titled Silly me,from the album.