Maybe no one told Clap Your Hands Say Yeah that first impressions are important. Or maybe they've just got massive sack. Either way, their self-released, self-titled debut CD opens with the weirdest, most potentially grating bit of snake-oil salesmanship you're likely to hear until Tom Waits puts out another record. I happen to dig the song, entitled "Clap Your Hands!" (a theme is emerging), but a maniacal carny barking over a stuttering calliope isn't for everyone. Those who persevere, though, will quickly discover that this garish foyer gives out onto spacious, elegant chambers of clean lines and soft lights.
Clap Your Hands are a five-piece from Brooklyn who're known to break out both harp and harmonica. They've recently been garnering rave press in their home city, and, over just the past two weeks, burning up the internet like a vintage Lohan nipslip. The pundits are saying Wilco (not hearing it), Talking Heads (okay), and Neutral Milk Hotel (getting warmer), but if it checks in with a number of modern and classic new wave referents, the music sings for itself: Clap Your Hands traffics in melodic, exuberant indie rock that pairs the shimmering, wafting feel of Yo La Tengo with a singular vocal presence that sounds like Paul Banks attempting to yodel through Jeff Mangum's throat. Or imagine the Arcade Fire if their music were more fun-loving and less grave.
Of course, if Clap Your Hands had a press kit, it would undoubtedly include something about "synthesizing these influences into a sound that's uniquely their own." And for once, it would be true. On the album's first true song, "Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away", a wailing vocal evokes Walkmen frontman Hamilton Leithauser, as hitching, muted guitars and singing melodic ones twist and furl over throbbing bass. On "Over and Over Again (Lost and Found)", the band veers into more Interpol-ish territory, with small, stripped guitars and bass, a thin synth wash, and lilting vocals with woozily yawning vowels. Same goes for the iridescent guitars, purring synths, and weary vocals of "Details of the War".
The record is consistently, remarkably strong, but "The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth" in particular stands out, with its richly buzzing synth phrases, textbook Modest Mouse guitar lead (a trebly, gliding string bend skimming over the rhythm like a flat stone over a pond), contrapuntal bass, and shuffling drums. The song also features one of vocalist Alec Ounsworth's most memorable performances: He ramps up the urgency as the heavier chords kick in, his voice cracking and shifting in cascading waves as if someone were pressing his vocal cords to a fret board and bending them. "Is This Love?", with its clean, galloping guitars and fruit loop synth trills is the song most blatantly redolent of Neutral Milk Hotel (especially of the unhinged pop and careening vocals Mangum favored on On Avery Island), and its dizzily wowing vocal harmonies carry over to "Heavy Metal", where fuzzed-out bass and wheezing harmonica punch smart shapes into the fizzy guitars.
There's something really refreshing about stumbling across a great band that's trembling on the cusp without any sort of press campaign or other built-in mythology-- you actually get to hear the music with your own ears. While a lot of bands view the promotional apparatus as a necessary evil, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah prove that it's still possible for a band to get heard, given enough talent and perseverance, without a PR agency or a label. Indie rock has received a much-needed kick in the pants, and we have the rare chance to decide what a band sounds like of our own accord before any agency cooks up and disseminates an opinion for us. Damn, maybe this is how it's supposed to work!
-Brian Howe, June 22, 2005
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/c/clap-your-hands-say-yeah/clap-your-hands-say-yeah.shtml
Review by J. Scott McClintock
You've undoubtedly heard of these guys by now. They're all over the Net, and if you don't have a computer, someone who does told you about them. Their story is as much a testament to the power of the grassroots-indie-blog machine as it is a sign of crumbling major-label authority. Self-released, self-promoted, and self-distributed (right down to licking the stamps), Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's self-titled debut is well on its way to selling a respectable 40,000 copies as this review goes to press -- and they don't even have a record contract. These Brooklyn-based boys like it that way, too. If there were ever a band who could do a cover of Sinatra's "My Way," and mean it, it's these guys. Theirs is a template for success that every budding Shins or Modest Mouse could do well to follow: work hard, practice hard, play well, and write good songs -- the rest will take care of itself. And it did. Heavy hype on the Internet had the guys sending copies of this album to the four corners, just as they were settling into being a band, and when the labels came knocking, these guys just said, "Thank you, we're fine." They are fine. Fine and fun. Their sound is evocative of nearly every indie band you've ever heard of -- enough to flick a switch somewhere in your head, but not enough to call them guilty of derivation. A list could be made here, but it would be this reviewer's list -- yours would probably look a lot different, and that's fine, too. You might find Talking Heads in there, while someone else hears early solo John Cale. Or you may find Neutral Milk Hotel where someone else finds some Joy Division. It doesn't matter, because that's precisely the band's strongest suit -- their ability to sound immediately familiar to everyone while, simultaneously, shrugging off any attempts at direct comparison. If a warbly alto makes you David Byrne, then, yes, there's that aspect of Alec Ounsworth's voice to be reckoned with, but Clap Your Hands Say Yeah deserve better than first impression labeling like this. They simply have made a good record here -- one that a great deal of people will find an enjoyable listen. The album opener, "Clap Your Hands!" mixes starry-eyed hopefulness with drunken abandon and serves as a "Step right up!" invitation to join the fellas on their merry ride. It sounds like nothing else on the record, like a weird intro for a mixtape -- a scratchy carnival record with the barker announcing the beginning of side one. What follows is good stuff. Poppy, '80s-tinged, and hooky as hell, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's debut certainly makes for pleasant listening. Those who have read the blogs and heard the hype might well be expecting the second coming. These people will be disappointed and post morose reviews on Amazon: "I was expecting sooooo much, but this album is only 'good.'" That's right! It's good. Not magnificent, not groundbreaking, but it is a new band's first album, and it is good -- darn good. There's a ton of potential here -- in the songwriting, the musicianship -- and it will be interesting to see if Clap Your Hands Say Yeah can Teflon-coat themselves against all the ballyhoo and continue to be impressive on their own terms.
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