Clap Your Hands Say Yeah- Hysterical

Mon 17th Oct, 2011 in Music Reviews

After such a promising first album, Brooklyn’s Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (CYHSY) all but disappeared off the radar soon after. Bar the quirky Satan Said Dance and a very select few others, Some Loud Thunder was the album CYHSY did not need. Already establishing themselves as the band with the warbling singer, CYHSY were a musical case of love-or-hate.

The self-titled debut of 2005 was start-to-finish brilliance, with twangs of country, technical drumming and love-lorn lyrics. Alec Ounsworth’s distinctive yodelesque wails added layers of emotion to standouts Heavy Metal, Is This Love?, Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away, and indie dancehall favourite, the stomping The Skin of my Yellow Country Teeth. Their attempt at a prompt follow up was perhaps too ambitious, with SLT being met with lacklustre reviews. Had Pitchfork’s former golden children lost their cred? Had something Dave Fridmann touched not turn to gold?

Cut to four years later, and Hysterical is the follow up album that never was; equal parts David Byrne wailing ( Ketamine and Ecstasy, Maniac ), pared-back balladry ( Misspent Youth, Siesta (For Snake) ), and boundless Cure-tinged rock ( Same Mistake, Into Your Alien Arms ). Producer John Congleton has had minimal interference with their eclectic sound, but the added finish is all quality. The tight arrangements are polished a bit more than previous releases, and are plumped out with strings and more back up singing.

Ounsworth’s vocals are harnessed into more deliberate deliveries of increasingly upbeat lyrics, such as repeated rhetorical questions in Same Mistake (“Where’s the action?”). Title track Hysterical is a fuzzy guitar and heavily-keyed odyssey that even Bowie would be proud to lay claim to. For a complete change of pace, seven-minute opener Adam’s Plane is a mounting storm of epic proportions, consisting of two distinct parts. What a stunning resurrection for a band that has lay dormant for four years (or six, depending on who you ask).