Hysterical
After a five-year hiatus that's been described as something of a fact-finding mission for their true identity, Alec Ounsworth and co.'s third album casts them as the very thing their detractors claimed them to be so long ago.
It is nearly impossible to think, talk and especially write about Clap Your Hands Yeah without referencing the band's fantastic, albeit drastically overhyped, 2005 debut. Both the music itself and the record label-less, internet-driven buzz have become something of indie rock folklore. The Philly-Brooklyn rockers essentially redefined what an indie band could be in the modern age with their self-titled, achieving a level of success that they themselves certainly never expected, and—based on frontman Alec Ounsworth's well-documented reclusiveness—probably didn't even want in the first place. However, that album ha...
After 2007’s awkward ‘Some Loud Thunder’, the Brooklyn indie rock wannabes decided on self-imposed hibernation and a bout of prolonged navel-gazing.
The arty New York quintet's attempt to crossover is hampered by a dearth of hooks, writes <strong>Phil Mongredien</strong>
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Hysterical review: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah begin to rust away