Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Let's face it. There is no underground anymore. Not in the indie-rock world anyway. If there is an underground, it consists primarily of black metal, traditional blues and gospel, and way-out avant garde compositional jazz music. It is not, any longer, the domain of the Sebadoh's and Slint's of yesteryear.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah released their self-titled debut CD sometime around June of this year and already, here in mid-September they've landed a feature in TimeOut NY and have literally had bloggers and critics online and off slobbering over themselves all summer in what must be one of the hardest pushes ever that wasn't orchestrated by a mogul and didn't involve a Lohan or a Spears.

So while I may lament the fact that I don't feel much of a sense of discovery and possessiveness like I felt in the late 80s with the aforementioned groups, I've got to say that Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is, in my opinion, the most outstanding debut release of an American band this year. (I say American because I still think that Belgium's Ghinzu has the standout of the year with their record "Blow.")

Yeah, yeah, CYHSY's lead singer, Alec Ounsworth, has a loose, throaty cry that will DEFINITELY remind you of a young David Byrne. Plenty has been said about that. But this band is not the Talking Heads and is not an 80s throwback like so many from the past couple of years. If anything, they're more like the musical equivalent of the Coney Island freakshows of their Brooklyn homebase or what would happen if the old muttering-under-his-breath Popeye teamed with pre-Whip It Devo. Okay that's a stretch, but the mental image just seemed to fit.

From the word go there isn't a weak track on this record. And unlike most releases I've heard this year, this disc is best played in situ, not shuffled, not mix-taped, not as singles - but just as its laid out. The journey from start to finish is a big part of its appeal.

So even though the veil has been ripped from the eyes of music buyers by the immediacy of weblogs (like this very one) and a music press voraciously looking for the next big thing, leaving buyers like me pining for the days when a marginal indie-rock group could feel like one's own personal discovery for years before critical and commercial success stole them away - I can't say that I would hold that against the fine folks of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Just like their predecessors, they're just making the music they have to make. And I love them for it.