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By Michael Lopez in CD Preview, Other People's Blogs

Mon., Oct. 26 2009 @ 11:41AM

These fine young men call themselves Yeasayer and will have their sophomore album ready for February 2010

Is it too early to look ahead to already announced albums with 2010 release dates? No, especially when those releases carry the clout of such bands as Vampire Weekend, Yeasayer and Arcade Fire. Vampire Weekend has already teased listeners with a track from their January 2010 LP Contra, "Horchata," while Yeasayer has announced the tracklist for their February release Odd Blood. These may pale in comparison to the recent news of a possible 2010 release for Quebecois rockers Arcade Fire.

We will get to Yeasayer and Vampire Weekend in a bit, but this recent news about Arcade Fire is more intriguing due to its speculative nature. The fine folks at Stereogum have done some reporting and have received a tip that "Arcade Fire have been in the Magic Shop studio for the last three weeks working on their long awaited Neon Bible followup." The post also elaborates how member of the band are scoring the soundtrack for the Richard Kelly (the man responsible for Donnie Darko and also, unfortunately, Southland Tales) horror flick The Box. Read the full post here.

Vampire Weekend, on the other hand, have a definite album in 2010. That album, Contra, will be released January 12. They have made the track "Horchata" freely available via their website, and the song proves how the band hasn't much strayed from the sound of their self-titled debut -- an album that shot them to the top of the indie rock ranks. The song "A-Punk" from that particular album has found its way into an HP ad for a super sweet new, internet-connected printer.

Finally, we have Yeasayer, quite possibly the most innovative and, thus, weirdest of the bunch. Their 2007 debut All Hour Cymbals was amongst the year's best albums, showcasing the Brooklyn foursome's sense of unconventional musical arrangements. Their 2010 album Odd Blood is my most anticipated album of the year, and we're not quite yet to November yet. The band announced a tracklist for the album, the details of which you can see here.

2009 will go out with a bang, with a solid crop of albums yet to be released -- offerings from Neon Indian, The Roots, The Clipse, Julian Casablancas among others. It's hard, however, to not look towards the new year for some much-anticipated releases, especially when those bands leak a track or two, giving us fans oh so much to salivate over.