If you happy and you know it, Clap your hands say yeah.
Nobody likes the feeling of confusion, however this is how I'm left after hearing this offering from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. The major problem that I'm faced with is that I really can't make up my mind whether this is highly original and groundbreaking, or whether it is as bizarre as skirts that some women decide is an idea to wear over trousers.
The album's title song is the first we hear and I'm torn between visions of an old eerie house with this playing on a gramophone, or eves dropping on a voodoo ceremony. Again either is enough to give you the proverbial willies, with it starting with quick organ notes, and an almost chanting chorus of 'Clap Your Hands'. So clutching my girlfriend's soft toy for comfort I move on to the next song, 'Let The Cool Goodness Rust Away'. With gentle guitar strums and light-hearted tambourine taps, I must be able to light the candles and turn the lights off with out fear of unknowingly coaxing the devil through a vortex. Alec Ounsworth has what can only be described positively as an interesting voice. It's a cross between White Stripes' crooner Jack White's at it's most annoying and a blues singer from the 1920's, in it's nail-on-a-chalkboard whine. The song with its folksy feel is a jolly number all the same.
With a simple beat and a high range keyboard melody, 'Over And Over Again (Lost And Found)' is probably the best song on here. Alec's song writing is very good, and his singing is bearable on this one. It's catchy but interestingly simple, a combination that doesn't always work. We then have the first of a couple of instrumentals which sound like wordless lullabies and do nothing but send me to sleep, which isn't to say they are boring, just sweet tinny sounds...*Yaaawwn*
'Details Of War' has low vocals that sound like Babybird or even very Jim Morrison-esque - and in fact there is something very much like The Doors in this song, with it's gentle pounding drumming, and echoing vocals. Greatly titled, 'The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth' is more of the same formula, albeit a little more heavier in it's deeper guitar sound and the fact that the drummer is really getting into this one, good for you, fella! 'Heavy Metal' is pretty un-heavy Metal and disappointing, whilst 'In This House On Ice' we have strange lyrics like, "I don't know how you can stand next to me // You talk like a noose // and only confuse my perplexity...", well, you're not the only one there, pal!
Now penultimate song 'Gimmie Some Salt' really sums this album up. With it's strange almost random noises like a child playing on a Major Morgan, and it's chugging bass line, and catchy verses you can't help but listen, and you are drawn to hear it until the end, but it is any good? Hmm. Original? Yes. However it's very hard to see just where Claps Your Hands Say Yeah actually fit in to the massive musical mosaic. Maybe popular with art students and those looking for something new and undiscovered, however with many other bands playing a lot of better music it's hard to see why anyone would want purchase this. Maybe I'm wrong and I hope they go on to prove me wrong, as we do need original voices, however Alec's voice is original for a reason...