Yeasayer, ODD BLOOD

The secret weapon of Brooklyn’s much-ballyhooed Yeasayer is that their shamelessness is their charm. How else to explain why these master synthesists first got away with funky exotica on All Hour Cymbals and have now made even more of a spectacle copping OMD’s Dazzle Ships on the new Odd Blood? With percolating synth lines their new priority, they’ve upped the pleasure quotient a quantum and overstuffed their audio space with an abundance of goofy rhythms, complex rhythms, thrilling rhythms.

If Vampire Weekend went after world music’s head, these guys want the body. Which in no way means the foursome is unintelligent, but that their new agenda is physical. First single “Ambling Alp” takes the loose puddles and tube percussion of their debut and tightens the groove into an almost martial stomp, albeit one with a catchy chorus. Chris Keating yowls with such gleeful, theatrical aplomb that you can’t help but commend his willingness to dive into the depths of the uncool and emerge with a great hook. And that’s on top of all the synthetic elements. The imagination in “Rome,” a diwali- rockabilly organ jam is even harder to come by.

Yesayer’s defining characteristic is their hunger for new noises, reconstituting popping bubbles on centerpiece “O.N.E.” the way OMD did clinking typewriters on “Genetic Engineering,” or the Amadou & Mariam-esque vocal intro to “Madder Red,” which eventually becomes both shreddy '80s arena-rock and Malian blues at the same time. They way these guys use synths on “Strange Reunions” as vocal mimics rather than just set dressing is topped by the way they pretend others are sitars. And, lest you think their 80s spirit is strictly a musical formality, they throw down a clappy anthem about “making love 'til the morning light” near the end.

Odd Blood exists in a place where synthesized sounds are the trees and the moss — the most organic elements available — a certainly different musical landscape than the one they explored three years ago. The fans of the swirling, open-ended early stuff knew they were in on a secret, but the band was in on a greater one: that bigger beats and tighter structures can cast away their sonic limitations.