Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Hysterical

You know in Peter Pan pantomimes? When Tinkerbell gets ill or something because people don’t believe in her? And she needs people to clap their hands (yeah, you can see where this is going) to make her well? Well, those people clap and they cheer, and sometimes they even whoop and they bring that poorly fairy back to life, full of vitality and zest again. It’s nice huh? It’s nice that people care enough to do that. Clapping totally works.

I guess people just don’t care as much about half-forgotten indie-rock bands. ‘Hysterical’ is the sound of a light going out. ‘Hysterical’ is a half-arsed shrug, a death rattle. No-one seems to care, no-one’s doing the clapping equivalent of CPR here. Tinkerbell’s laying there as lifeless as Resusci Anne. Sorry guys, we didn’t try hard enough; Tinkerbell’s dead.

How did we get here? Forget the Pitchfork stuff. Buzz Schmuzz. Hype Schmype. The debut was A Great Record. A personal favourite. Jagged, ragged, awkward as hell. And that incredible voice which felt like elbows in the ribs, which crowbarred your ears and brain apart and let anguished magic seep in. Could he sing? Like, in tune? Hell no. Did it sound incredible? Like he needed to sing? Like he had a bristling devil in him fighting to escape? Hell yeah.

God, I loved how ‘The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth’ howled, loved how vicious it was, revelled in the titular descriptiveness, thrilled to its pain. Followed by ‘Is This Love?’ and ‘Heavy Metal’; it was a hat-trick that meant as much as Lineker versus Poland (insert your own age appropriate hat-trick here if you desire).
The follow up ‘Some Loud Thunder’ was decent too, promised that the debut was no flash-in-the-pan. But this? The jagged, the ragged, those sharp edges? They’ve been filed down, emery boarded to within an inch of their lives, planed to a smooth finish with no risk of splinters. Caustic soda replaced by flat, tepid sparkling water.

Ok, it’s not all bad. Some of it’s not bad at all, occasionally it even flashes into life. It’s just disheartening to see so much promise squandered. This record won’t make you angry, just disappointed.

But this sucks, feels like i’m bad mouthing an ex. Let’s find some positives. Honestly, it starts well; the first minute or so of ‘Same Mistake’ gets everything right and ‘Maniac’ is a great cascade of irregularities and loose screws. There’s a really sweet bit towards the end of ‘Yesterday, Never’ that swells with keyboard joy like Grandaddy at their purely poppermost.

And – and – and, well, that’s about it. Oh, the voice, should mention the voice; that yelp, that divisive scream. It’s been sanitised now, it’s been bled, all the pain has escaped. It’s horribly polite.

A lame and lazy last line to match a lame and lazy album? Sure. Clap Your Hands Say Meh.