In listening to Yeasayer's 'Odd Blood', I'm forced to indulge my inner, angry old man. '"I'll tells ya what's wrong with the kids these days: Attention Deficit Disorder. Sure they make everything flashy with about a million ideas a minute, but where's the content? Where are the tunes?"

Yeasayer were one of the really cool surprises at Pukkelpop 2008. Their personable, acoustic guitar-driven tunes performed then were quite different beasts as compared to the 80s synth-pop tunes on 'Odd Blood'. Imagine Duran Duran songs with immaculate Massive Attack production and you've got a good idea of what to expect. Unfortunately, the pop is flatter than a single Duran and the various clicks, effects and souped-up basses seem more like gimmicks than adding anything memorable.

It starts off promisingly enough with 'The Children' and the best use of a vocoder since 'How Does It Make You Feel' from Air. Sounds like a great opener to some kind of epic concept album around alienation within the alien nation. Niet dus. It stops cold and leaves us with the weird reggae electro of 'Ambling Alp'. There's a lot of sonic ideas in there (the pulsing tones give a great momentum) but ultimately the singer comes off on the decidely annoying side of the Tragically Hip while the text about not being 'the perfect man' never really convinces. Equally, the Ennio Morricone background vocals on 'I Remember' initially suck you into a great songspace, but the song living there just wasn't enough to hold my attention.

Hey, I hear you Yeasayer fans cry, who's the one with the attention-deficit here? I'll admit it, I have little time to listen to records that don't grab me. That said, I think that Yeasayer have a really great record coming, 'Odd Blood' just isn't it.