Impatience is a virtue in pop music: the quicker you get to the chorus, the better. This chorus should be as straightforward as possible—a big beat and a vocal hook and you're set. Yeasayer's new record, Fragrant World, starts with this formula, but slows the pace.

The more relaxed feel opens up space in the songs, and the band has endless ideas to fill it. Opener “Fingers Never Bleed” delivers a dramatic chorus with a melancholy countermelody that gives it heft. “Longevity” pulls the same trick with an elastic synth riff during its refrain. The band often opts for delayed gratification, saving a song's best moment for the coda, as on “Blue Paper” and “Henrietta.”

Yeasayer isn't breaking new ground. The album has a few surprises—like a switch to 9/8 time signature on “Demon Road”—but execution, not innovation, is the band's key strength. Pop may be a mindless pleasure, but Fragrant World is an argument that within that mindlessness there's room to be purposeful, one or two deep thoughts to ponder on the dance floor.