It's always the supposedly normal ones ya gotta watch, aint it? I mean, any time I see pictures of Alec Ounsworth and his four chums from CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH in the press they look like pretty average former college kids. The sort of band who might appear daring only when compared to Coldplay.
But listen to them on record and the cracks and quirks soon to begin to appear. Indeed, after a couple of plays of the lunatic carnival burlesque, Tindersticks organ and loudhailer of the opening "Clap Your Hands!" you begin to wonder whether, instead of being the nice boys with cute smiles handing out pills legally behind the local pharmacy counter, that Ounsworth and co are actually the straitjacket-flaunting weirdos receiving the medicaments after all.
Of course there's a method to CYHSY'S madness too, and for all the quirks of oddball linking tracks like the 50-second chiming clock symphony of "Sunshine & Clouds (And Everything Proud)" and the neo-shoegazing rush and Burroughs-ian lyrical bananas of "In This Home On Ice" ("Now that we fattened the cow/ And set out to plow unknown enemies/"Wow!" shouts the startled cow" - er, like, come again, will ya?) there's the lovely, first flush enthusiasm of songs like "Is This Love?" and the strident riffs, gnarly basslines and pounding drums of "Heavy Metal" to keep us pop kids happy.
It's also true to say it's not exactly tricky to spot the NYC references these Brooklynites clearly have no intention of denying. Ounsworth's excitable voice has more than an ounce or two of David Byrne's shortcircuiting android appeal about it, and at times the quirky likes of Magnetic Fields ("Sunshine & Clouds"), a less virtuosic Television (the wry, but dislocated "The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth") and lesser-spotted, but cool outfits like French Kicks (the motorik beat and distant, opulent synths of "Over And Over Again (Lost & Found)") spring to mind with precious littel goading required. However, as yet at least, these references sound more like springboards to better things rather than millstones, so it's not difficult to give them the benefit of the doubt at this juncture.
|
This eponymous debut, then, is an engagingly angular listen which has enough familiarity to keep both the dyed-in-the-wool indie kids happy and enough offbeat excursions to ensure more experimental types are catered for as well. Mission accomplished for now, with the possibility of the Pavlovian nature of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's name becoming de rigeur in terms of response to their future output.
|
