Record Label: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Genre: Indie Rock
Band Link: link
Buy on Amazon.com link

When Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s self-titled debut album came out a couple of years ago, I was one of the few who didn’t swoon and eat up all of their noodlery and generic indie rock cliches. I didn’t dislike them per se, it was more that I just didn’t see what was so special.

Two years later, their follow-up reeks of a band whose experimental tendencies are too strong and unfortunately lack in the songwriting department. The band are best when they’re doing the straightforward indie rock, with the dance-punky drums or the jangly guitars. However, this only makes up a portion of this album. The rest of it is that type of studio tinkering that really needs the expertise of someone like Jim O’Rourke or Brian Deck. This is not to say that the experimental aspect is bad; in fact, much of it is quite interesting. The problem is that it doesn’t make up for the fact that when you strip away all of the layers, the songs themselves are mediocre at best.

CYHSY are the new type of blogger-approved band that gain fame and popularity before they have time to truly hone their craft (also see Tokyo Police Club). Where on their first album they still had a few well-written, catchy and memorable songs, Some Loud Thunder sorely lacks those repeatable indie anthems.

While this is purely my personal opinion, I absolutely hate the singer’s voice. He reminds me a little bit of Destroyer’s Dan Bejar, but the way he uses his nasally voice is far more grating. To me, his voice really doesn’t fit with the band’s sound.

I feel like CYHSY are one of the many indie rock bands that for whom if you say anything negative a bunch of bloggers will throw e-snowballs at you or something. But the truth is, they’re not as good as you think they are.

Bottom Line: Indie rock demi-gods are too flashy that they forget to write decent songs. Pretense doesn’t make a good album.
Notable Tracks: Some Loud Thunder, Satan Said Dance,
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