Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
by Will Manuel
The music (and by music I mean drum beat, baseline, guitar, and synthesizer) covers a wide range from Joy Division ‘light’ to Joy Division ‘extra-light.’ Nothing wrong with that. Sometimes the vocal stylings (high pitched, anxiety-riddled, speech slurred, possibly on designer drugs) remind of some 80’s post-punk group, whose name I can’t exactly remember (for some reason I'm thinking Violent Femmes, The Only Ones, Talking Heads). They’re kind of all over the place (so were the Magnetic Fields, although...) The tambourine, harmonica, and synthesizer (set to organ, harpsichord and regular) all make an appearance. At one point, I think I even heard a ukulele, but don’t ask me to spell it again.
Are Clap Your Hands Say Yeah the next Pixies? No. But they are 15% more genuine than Arcade Fire.
That first song is hilarious. Reminds of some of those in-between song bits you would hear on a Beatles or Stones album. 'Details of War' is like if you mushed together Lou Reed's Heroin with a Stephin Merritt song. Track ____ is really good too.
