Reconsidering Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Sometimes it's easy to pinpoint when you started to lose faith in a band. In the case of Clap Yours Hands Say Yeah, it was at their performance at Bonnaroo 2006. At that time, their self-titled and much lauded 2005 album was (and still is) one of my personal favorites. I had already seen them live at a small-ish venue in Madison. That show was pretty good. So, maybe it was the big stage, or maybe it was the heat, but they just weren't very good on that June day. I can't even remember exactly why they weren't good, but I do recall the unanimous sentiment in my group that we should have skipped the few songs we did stay for in favor of Elvis Costello.
And sometimes it's easy to pinpoint when you almost completely lost faith in a band...
In 2007, the band released their second album, Some Loud Thunder. In the four years since its release, I may have listened to it twice. It wasn't that it did not hold a candle to their debut. Sophomore slumps are common. It was just a bad album. I would still happily listen to their first album while Some Loud Thunder sat on the shelf. As the years passed, lead singer Alec Ounsworth released an OK solo album, but Clap Your Hands Say Yeah was seemingly on hiatus until they re-emerged in summer of 2011 with the announcement of their third album Hysterical.
Unfortunately, Hysterical seemed to pick up where Some Loud Thunder left off in terms of critical reviews. There wasn't much positive press around the album. I went into it with muted expectations and I was pleasantly surprised. Once again, it didn't really compare to their debut, but if I stripped away the comparisons and rated it as "just some album" it was pretty good. Good enough, in fact, that when they announced that their fall tour would be rolling through Urbana, I was excited. And after that night, they completely removed the bad taste I had for their live performance. It was a fantastic show, but with one interesting quirk - they only played one song from Some Loud Thunder. I don't know if this was some tacit acknowledgement of that album's quality, or a signaling that they knew what the audience thought about that material and just steered clear. The show itself was received by the small-ish crowd as you might expect. The old songs were really well received, the new songs were acknowledged, if not appreciated and everyone seemed to have a decent time.
My faith in the band has been restored, but I'm was left with a nagging thought. What exactly about Some Loud Thunder made it so unpalatable? Had I been too harsh in 2007? Was there something that I (and everyone else) missed? In an effort to close the book on this case, I present to you a "live" commentary of the album in it's entirety. I'll try to document the highs and lows and try to figure out if and where this album went wrong. Although, before I even press play, I can tell you...
1. Some Loud Thunder
0:02 - Are my speakers broken?!? What's all this distortion? There's a pretty good melody - and there's that line I remembered from their Madison show. But this distortion is completely unnecessary. It's completely ruining this song and
2:40 - it's getting worse as the song goes on. I hope the whole album isn't like this.
2. Emily Jean Stock
:58 - Well, this song isn't distorted.
1:14 - Oh wait, yes it is, and one of the guitar parts doesn't sound like it usually does, which is distracting.
2:26 - But it's not so bad. Oops, more distortion.
3:54 - It was OK.
3. Mama, Won't You Keep Them Castles in the Air and Burning?
0:39 - Mellow start.
1:41 - I guess this OK, but there's not much to it. There are weird starts and stops and there's no momentum.
4:07 - Nothing terrible about the song, but it just didn't grab me. No hooks.
4. Love Song No. 7
0:03 - Got some piano going on.
0:58 - That short interlude was strange.
2:50 - This isn't so bad. There's some good vocals here that are catchy and I like that.
3:29 - The drums are kinda cool.
4:03 - Now there's just some ahhhh-ing. Could stand to shorten up the song a bit.
5. Satan Said Dance
0:00 - This is harder to be open-minded about, since I've heard it much more than the other songs. I'll try though. I've never really liked the random horns and noises over the intro. Again, I think my speakers are shorting out.
1:02 - But I do like the vocals on the track.
1:38 - The same malady of over-extended interludes is here too. It's hard to keep focused between the verses.
2:45 - Distorted organ. Meh.
4:03 - I think that's the main problem thusfar. These songs are longer than they need to be. There's not a lot direction. Example: He's just saying, "Satan," over and over again. Which leads to another long...
5:05 - and messy outro.
6. Upon Encountering the Crippled Elephant
0:13 - Is this an instrumental? I did like the few shorter instrumental bits from the debut, and this is perfectly pleasant. Didn't really tie in to the last song though.
7. Goodbye to Mother and the Cove
0:10 - There's another sound being introduced, like an electronic violin picking? There's a lot of those and this sounds nothing like the band yet. I don't dislike it though.
2:11 - Argh, more long interludes! Shorten this up and it would be better. I don't mean to say that these interludes are bad, they're just too long.
3:33 - Militant drumming. It's out of place in this song.
4:15 - And there's the background singing. It hasn't been to prevalent so far. I can see how people wouldn't like it, but it's really a hallmark that's been missing.
5:19 - And it looks like another 20 second+ outro.
8. Arm and Hammer
0:04 - Some more distortion. Immediately takes me out of the flow, especially after the last song.
0:53 - More distortion. Ick. Unlike the opening track, there's less melody behind it, which makes it less bearable.
9. Yankee Go Home
0:01 - I also remember this song, even though it wasn't played any more than any other song.
0:53 - The cadence is more enjoyable. I probably remember this song because it's much catchier than anything else.
3:31 - And a concise ending. I like it.
10. Underwater (You and Me)
0:12 - This is a promising start!
1:37 - Good stuff.
2:16 - But another needlessly long interlude. I've typed this so much that I'm questioning if "interlude" is the proper word to be using. They are the instrumental parts between the singing, just so we're clear.
3:55 - This is good, but we're back to too much repetition, and what's this? The music is fading out but there's still almost a minute of track left? Maddening! Cut the fat!
11. Five Easy Pieces
0:13 - With the exception of "Arm and Hammer", the back half of the album is fairly decent.
0:44 - Except those vocal effects... Too much. If not for them, I could get into this, but with them, it's too distracting.
2:36 - Interluding...
3:02 - Erf. That punctuation was unneeded.
4:45 - Interluding... It's really nice to listen to, though. My attention span just can't handle it's length.
46:44 - Album complete.
So, I'll soften my stance that this isn't a "bad" album, but it definitely has some flaws. It could easily be a 30-35 minute album and be much better. There was just too much wandering for my taste and if the distortion was removed completely, it would really be an improvement.
But the bottom line is that it just doesn't compare to the debut. There's nothing as immediately catchy. It lacks the drive and urgency that made the best songs on the debut so good. With that said, it's not fair to solely compare it to the rest of the catalog. Unfortunately, as "just some album" it still ranks as below average in my book. Maybe I'll give it another try in four more years.