- Critic score
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- By date
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Oct 5, 2012It's not a bad album, it's actually pretty good. Just not their best.
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Sep 12, 2012The quintet has a real pulse on how to be memorable, melodic and magnificent without sacrificing their defined visions.
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Sep 7, 2012Almost every track offers up at least a snatch of melody you're always glad to hear again.
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Aug 29, 2012For those willing to rise to the challenge, Fragrant World has a wealth of obscured moments of bizarre genius.
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Aug 29, 2012This is their pointed after-hours comedown LP, it's not enough of a disclaimer to save what amounts to an occasionally flourishing, but largely frustrating and tedious record.
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Aug 28, 2012Coupled with a diminished knack for melody and slower (r'n'b-aping) tempos, conveying a vaguely subdued mood, the difficult Fragrant World just isn't what most people would consider fun.
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Aug 27, 2012On a first listen, the music sounds aloof and arty - and it is, full of conceptual wiles. But the next time around, pop hooks sink in; more often than not, "Fragrant World" is a snappy synth-pop album.
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Aug 23, 2012When you give it [a] chance, this album blooms into something different, deeper and more resonant that, along with its musicality, should be appreciated for its originality and growth.
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Aug 22, 2012The result is something both tighter and somehow weirder, tethering college-dance-party grooves to the band's far-out secret-society visions.
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Aug 22, 2012Fragrant World is an uglier, darker affair [than Odd Blood], full of tangled synth lines and hyper-compressed rhythm tracks. It's sometimes brilliant, too, with at least two hooky standouts ("Henrietta", "Reagan's Skeleton") – but it's also the first Yeasayer album that threatens to collapse under its own teeming weight.
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Aug 21, 2012Fragrant Word has killer synthpop tunes buried within it, but too often you wonder how much better a record this would have been if they quit dicking around and just gave you the song.
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Aug 21, 2012Fragrant World is by no means a bad album - it may start slowly, and end rather mutedly, but there's a fairly satisfying core to it - it's only really a disappointment as Yeasayer themselves have already raised the bar incredibly high.
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Aug 21, 2012Its sound is bright, slick, and micromanaged.
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Aug 21, 2012Fragrant World is by far the band's most immersive and consistent record, a buzzingly exotic mass of nervy future soul and paranoid disco that grows in stature with each listen.
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Aug 21, 2012Instead of an album hurtling 100mph in one of those directions, Fragrant World feels like the work of a band with stabilisers on.
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Aug 21, 2012The thematic and musical revamping is impressive, even for a band that seems to enjoy turning itself inside out on a regular basis, but it isn't quite matched by the execution.
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Aug 21, 2012Overall, Fragrant World is a sexy, infectious compilation of conventional musical tropes, filtered through Yeasayer's dark kaleidoscope.
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Aug 21, 2012Yeasayer's only triumph here is perfecting a niche they've already seemed to master.
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Aug 21, 2012Fragrant World may initially come off as messy, even chaotic. But the trio of Anand Wilder, Chris Keating and Ira Wolf Tuten are on to something worth absorbing all the same.
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Aug 21, 2012The aloof, introspective outlook isn't enough to fill the void left behind, nor is it enough to save Fragrant World from sounding somewhat generic.
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Aug 21, 2012At times, you're sure they've nicked a melody from some neon-dream MTV hit you can't quite place. Then you realize they're reinventing that dream right now.
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Aug 20, 2012Yeasayer soar with sublime choruses that are everything that pop has been trying to realize: high-art dionysian bliss contained in three- to four-minute bursts.
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Aug 20, 2012The band's tendency to overreach may be muted on Fragrant World, but Yeasayer is still as earnestly silly as ever.
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Q MagazineAug 20, 2012When it works, it's a glorious thing. [Sep 2012, p.108]
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Aug 20, 2012This is not your usual carbon-copy victory-lap album--it's an ambitious boundary pusher.
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Aug 20, 2012They're at their best when they do a little less, as on the surprisingly melancholy and lovely Henrietta.
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Aug 17, 2012It's the freakier corners here that shine bright like neon.
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Aug 17, 2012A frustrating experience overall.
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Aug 17, 2012The grooves and the sonic wizardry work, but Fragrant World doesn't have half of the intensity, innovation, or memorable hooks of the group's two prior LPs.
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Aug 17, 2012Yeasayer capture this seemingly ineffable fear, dread, and paranoia with wide-eyed clarity throughout this astounding album.
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Aug 17, 2012Between sombre tones and esctasy highs, and with tracks like 'Folk Hero Shtick' and 'Reagan's Skeleton', this will leave you with a grin on your face and a confidence music will keep going.
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Aug 16, 2012The first half of Fragrant World plods around self-indulgently, and No Bones veers all over the place... But the halfway point marks a clear shift in quality, as if they finally rediscovered their pop sensibility.
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MagnetAug 16, 2012There's a duality to Fragrant World that, sized up alongside its two predecessors, reveals an inherent character trait and a more troublesome trend. Bad songs turn into good songs, and good songs turn into better ones. [No.90 p.51]
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Aug 16, 2012Fragrant World is curiously thin.
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Aug 16, 2012The fractured sounds give us little to hold on to; the songwriting's hidden behind so much distraction.
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Aug 15, 2012[Fragrant World] is a further evolution of the band's interests in Eighties electro and contemporary R&B.
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Aug 14, 2012Yeasayer remain the new-millennium kings of studio manipulation, and it's downright jaw-dropping that they're able to experiment so wildly in the context of such catchiness. Fragrant World feels like a victory lap.
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Aug 14, 2012Appreciating this album does admittedly require time and effort, which occasionally isn't repaid... But once you've settled into it, Yeasayer's Fragrant World is a wonderful place to explore.
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Aug 14, 2012Fragrant World challenges from the first to the 15th listen, yet lacks the hooks that made Odd Blood such an impossible album to ignore. But, at the same time, Yeasayer are a talented bunch who make forward-thinking, 21st century pop music designed to make you think while you dance.
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Aug 13, 2012Just as Yeasayer appears to have planted its two feet firmly on the dance floor, it seems to have lost much of its capacity for eccentric pop magic.
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Alternative PressAug 9, 2012It's a relief to hear even weirder experiments emerge on Fragrant World--especially the second half. [Sep 2012, p.94]
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UncutAug 9, 2012Despite the contemporary sheen too much here is reminiscent of a certain kind of overwrought mid-80s synthpop. [Sep 2012, p.87]
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Aug 9, 2012It's no stinker, more a transition, a typical third LP that just doesn't catch light enough.
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MojoAug 9, 2012It's sex music for oddballs. [Sep 2012, p.89]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 22 out of 25
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Mixed: 2 out of 25
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Negative: 1 out of 25
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Aug 21, 2012
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Sep 7, 2012
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Aug 23, 2012