Brooklyn’s Clap Your Hands Say Yeah have spent the bulk of 2005 as this year’s model of the Indie Rock Critical Darling. Their self-titled debut album — itself a lean and mean platter of exuberant pop — found its way into the marketplace with backing from several of the more respected MP3 blogs and critical acclaim from Rolling Stone, who put them on their Hot List earlier this year.
From there, the raves were amplified out the yin-yang by a feedback-looping blogosphere looking for the “next Arcade Fire.” It was the attendant bloggorhea that led to CYHSY being incorrectly equated with the Talking Heads. While frontman Alec Ounsworth seems to draw his vocals from the same throaty backroom as David Byrne, the band’s sound isn’t at all reminiscent of the shimmery shiver of the Talking Heads. Rather, their tight, locked-in grooves, embellished throughout by sunny flourishes calls to mind a Feelies/Stereolab collaboration, with Ounsworth’s caterwauling supplying a nervy energy.
DC was the beneficiary of a late schedule change that saw the band pull out of a planned gig in Williamsburg, Virginia, for reasons we have not been able to ascertain. But while William and Mary indie rock fans may have been left at the Cheese Shop to softly weep over their bread ends, they ended up not missing much. Despite the tidal wave of fresh hype, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah offered the sold-out Black Cat a mostly enervating set that fell far short of hopes and expectations.
The evening started out promising enough — even ambitious, as the band led off with a pair of songs, “Graceful Retreat” and “Me and You, Watson”, not found on their debut album. The latter song proved to be an especially galvanizing, raucous little number that led the band into spirited performances of “Is This Love” and crowd-favorite “The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth.” At this juncture, everything seemed to be heading in the right direction. The band was kicking up a merry din and a couple of members were leaping about with abandon. Ounsworth — who we figure understands that his vocals are something of an acquired taste — seemed to be having fun changing up his pitch and cadence. Four songs in, you felt as if the gig was going to come off the way you hoped it was — with CYHSY delivering up the joyous, carnival-like atmosphere suggested by the opening track on their record.
Unfortunately, going into “Details of the War”, the action onstage came to a thudding halt, and from that moment on the band simply lost the string. Momentum turned to quicksand, sharp touches started going flat and what stage presence the band had began to rapidly diminish. “Cigarettes”, one of the new songs getting a workout on tour, found its way to the sagging middle of the set, its “sounds like a B-side best left forgotten” tunelessness providing no boost as pauses between songs grew more interminable. By the time the band worked their way around to a passive performance of “Gimme Some Salt”, Ounsworth’s utterances had faded into a barely perceptible mumble. As the performance waned, so too did the attention of those in attendance, and the sound of clubgoer conversation began to dominate the music.
