'If you find me I'll be sitting by the water fountain'

Another one from the friends list of Bat for Lashes here. I found myself, only about 5 days into this thing, that i'd have loads of trouble with finding bands to actually review everyday, but thanks to my idea of checking out friends of artists i already like, and a friend who pointed me in the direction of the random jump feature on purevolume, i think i'm gonna be alright for the while. Let's hope so anyway.
So today's is another i wouldn't usually hav picked, but again this is why i love this preoject. Just take a look at

YEASAYER

Good name for a start. You can scream at the top of your lungs I SAY YAY when this review is done. Honestly. Now the reason i was a little bit unsure of this band was the description of 'Gospel' on their Myspace. I wasn't dreading the thought of americans singing praise jesus, but it did make me a little wary. Well, once again i was wrong.
I'll be reviewing from their album All Hour Cymbals, and i've put a nice little link to a torrent here


So the very first thing that can be said about this band, is that they sure can make a noise. With what i can only imagine is a pretty large orchestra behind them including a whole range of instruments, and four available mouth to be singing with, this bands music is bordering epic if nothing else. However even with the vocals and the thousands of instruments they've got going on, you never seem like your eardrums are being mercilessly attacked. They are quite a lot like Arcade Fire in the sense that they've tamed all these instuments to work in fantastic harmony rather than each one competing for the lead and turning into some sort of angry beast. 
Another thing you'll notice from the off is how whoever's singing the verses of the song 'Sunrise' sounds like Tracy Chapman. Unfrotunately this one's a guy.
Vocals again contribute to this huge sound that Yeasayer are making. I can only assume all four guys involved in this band are singing, and the perfect harmonies and folky melodies fit pretty much perfectly with the music. In a few songs you almost get the feeling you are in a kind of medieval rock festival with guys playing loots and banging on drums the size of my house. The folky theme carries on pretty much through the entire album, but every now and then (and by that i mean incredibly often) we also get a hint of something more.... foreign? I'm not sure but in the song 'Wait for the summer' for instance, we get this combination of a sitar type instrument and tamborines and clapping to give us this overall feel of Indian, or Asian music. Whilst later on in the album we get a definate African tribal feel, such as with the beginning chorus wail in 'Ah. Weir' 

All these different cultural throwbacks come together to produce an album that screams experimental, but you just know that these guys knw exactly what their doing. It's not experimental in the way that a metal group might go rap just for the shiggles. It's experimental in the 'I know i've got this right' kind of way. And i don't want to judge based purely on this album alone, but it's clear they've been experimental since the day they came together as a band.
To further this point, they even dare to throw in some electronic elements in a couple of songs. What the hell, you might be thinking, are theese fools doing with putting electronic shit in the same album as African tribal shit? Well that's clearly just who these guys are. And it works. I definately have a lot of time for bands who aren't afraid to say fuck it and just do whatever the hell they want in their music. And i have to be honest here, despite this project already throwing some great bands at me, this is the only one whose future work I'm sure I will crave so desperately, just to see their progressions through their music. I'm incredibly, undeniably interested in this band. 


And that's always a plus, right?