ALBUM REVIEW: Yeasayer - Live at Ancienne Belgique

(Self-Released, 2011)
Review by Michael Bird
                                              

3.5/5

I suspect that one of the reasons Yeasayer’s debut All Hour Cymbals was met with more enthusiasm than follow-up full length Odd Blood is the absence of any real sense of discovery in the latter. Yeasayer had been playing together for little more than a year when All Hour Cymbals hit shelves, and were undoubtedly still refining their sound and exploring what they could do as a group. Odd Blood is a much more streamlined and focused album, but at the expense of loose arrangements, varied instrumentation and a willingness to let songs wander. Live At Ancienne Belgique shows that Yeasayer have arrived at a comfortable middle point between the two albums, at least in their live show.

The performance is taken from a time when Yeasayer were still touring and promoting Odd Blood, so initially the focus is on releases from that album. A little of the oppressive studio click-track feel of cuts ‘Madder Red’ and ‘Rome’ is gone though, and both songs benefit from the looser, livelier atmosphere. There’s a little imperfection in the keys and percussion, giving life to what might otherwise have been a monotonous affair. Straddling the line between acoustic performance and digital texture has always been one of the group’s strengths, but erring on the side of truly live performance is what elevates Yeasayer above their contemporaries in the experimental indie scene.

Singles ‘Ambling Alp’ and ‘2080’ are highlights toward the end of the show, and both are microcosms of the whole Yeasayer live package. Front man Chris Keating ups the delay on his vocals (he seems to control a great deal of what would normally be left to the sound desk from his keys/mixing station) and both guitar and bass swim in effects evoking vintage psychedelia. Again, the effects betray welcome hints of imperfection, wavering tonally from time to time and not always falling into place with the same precision you’d expect from a studio release. Live At Ancienne Belgique captures Yeasayer in an exciting phase, hitting their stride in a performance that emphasises the most enjoyable parts of their first two LP’s and sets the stage nicely for their next release.




The album is available for download here: http://yeasayer.net/xmas/