Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - CYHSY: Album Review

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, CYHSY (CYHSY, 2005)
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is another one of these cases where an album gets a really good review in Pitchfork and goes on to sell like, a thousand copies at this site called Insound.com, thus making it like the third highest selling album in the history of Insound.com. Now granted, this isn't actually impressive in an era when garbage like Mike Jones manages to go platinum in a matter of a few weeks, but it's like John Ford once said, "When it comes down between history and the legend, print the legend."

CLAP YOUR HANDS!

Should we really be clapping our hands if we have no money? Something tells me the guys in this band aren't actually poor themselves. Does anybody know whether or not they're Jews?

LET THE COOL GODDESS RUST AWAY

Not that I bothered to read many of the other (inferior) reviews of this on the Internets, but has anybody actually bothered to mention how much this song sounds like "Stop Whispering" by Radiohead? Seriously.

OVER AND OVER AGAIN (LOST AND FOUND)

What little I've read about them always seems to mention that they sound like the Talking Heads, which is kinda true. The lead singer kinda sounds like a young David Byrne (not to be confused with David Byrne when he was young).

SUNSHINE AND CLOUDS (AND EVERYTHING PROUD)

Not to sound all lazy and shit (even though I am), but it can generally be said that CYHSY is to Talking Heads as Interpol is to Joy Division, with a necessary caveat being that I like all four of those bands.

DETAILS OF THE WAR

Which is odd because I would actually compare this fifth track to Interpol at their more tedious, probably because it's slower and I prefer fast music to slow music.

THE SKIN OF MY YELLOW COUNTRY TEETH

For some odd reason I feel as if I've heard this in an episode of "Six Feet Under" or some shit, Arcade Fire-style, but that can't be possible because there wasn't even such a thing as a CYHSY as recent as like a few weeks ago. Maybe this sounds a little bit like the Arcade Fire.

IS THIS LOVE?

Fuck me and my dumbass comparison of songs with other songs. This really would go better if I tried it sober every once in a while, nhjic. I get the feeling that people in general are reading this not so much because it's that bad but because, I mean, have you seen some of these other blogs? If these assholes would just write more often.

HEAVY METAL

OK, back on topic. I didn't find that this track beared much resemblance to actual heavy metal, which is, I guess, a good thing not so much because heavy metal in and of itself is an inferior genre per se, but because so much of heavy metal is inferior music. If that makes any sense.

BLUE TURNING GRAY

Some sort of instrumental. Whatever.

IN THIS HOME ON ICE

This is definitely one of the more generic-sounding tracks on here, but I still kinda like it, so what does that tell you about me?

GIMME SOME SALT

Not to offer yet another asinine comparison, but I got a kinda Dismemberment Plan vibe from this, if anybody's interested.

UPON THIS TIDAL WAVE OF YOUNG BLOOD

Which brings us to the last song on the album. Is this supposed to be about child stars, like that one David Spade movie?

COMMENTS: So yeah, this is a pretty decent album (like an 8/10, maybe), even if it doesn't live up to its own level of phony hype. Even though I compared them to a lot of different groups, I don't mean to give the impression that they don't have their own unique sound. If there's one thing they've got going for them (other than, apparently, a good publicist), it's a certain uniqueness, if that's even a word (I'm sure it's some black person's name).

BEST TRACKS: Who cares, they all kinda sound the same anyway?