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Begin to forget the playful music boxes, the energetic and sunny melodies, those delightful acoustic interludes that you wished would last forever. Begin to erase from your mind any catchy melody you remembered! Delete that canary yellow cover, very homemade to be honest, which stood out on the shelves of your trusted store.
Start getting used to the black/white of totally inexpressive and confused faces, as if they had come out of a psychoanalyst's studio! Instead, start remembering Alec Ounsworth's voice and multiply it by 1000.
The Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are back. The east coast American band that we welcomed quite strangely almost two years ago. They were a sort of Arctic Monkeys of the new world: reaching success thanks to blogs on the internet and relentless word of mouth, they recorded their self-titled debut, thus receiving great responses from critics. However, some remained indifferent, some shouted miracle, while some couldn’t stand Ounsworth’s whining voice. Well, who can blame them? To be honest, it’s like a Thom Yorke with a severe stomach ache.
At first, I didn’t like them much either, but then gradually, I got used to the voice and appreciated especially the melodies and the music created by these five "east coasters" Americans.
From the premise I made, however, you will have understood (for those who already had the honor of knowing them) that the Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are no longer the same. This album is by no means a follow-up to the previous one.
It presents itself as stormy, without any memorable or catchy melody that you could sing in the shower. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah have dared and in my opinion, this choice is rewarded for the courage to not make a photocopy album of the previous one. Courage that allowed the creation of more introspective, deep sounds, and why not, also challenging for ears too fragile and too accustomed to current trends and charts!
The opening track ("some loud thunder") seems to come straight out of the sessions of the White Light/White Heat by Velvet Underground: the bass seems as if it wants to explode from the speakers and Alec barks, actually brays, more than ever. This gives you the impression of a bootleg poorly recorded at some chaotic concert, but it’s not so. Rust, knife blades that twirl and turn in the brain; “Emily Jean Stock”, is a ballad filled with all this! The bass lines, piano notes, and the explosion of cymbals! Acidic.
More noisy and whining.
“Mama, Won’t You Keep Them Castles in the Air and Burning” is less jarring from the noise but I don't know why it directly reminds me of those Syd-led Pink Floyd, rest in peace. And I want and am still trying to find “love” in the song “Love song n°7” which proceeds slowly and almost makes your stomach turn 180°! It seems as though shadows emerge from the screen at the incursion of that overbearing and gentle accordion with an almost "gypsy" sound. The overlapping voices and the snare drum conclude and we find again the long "Satan Said Dance".
At this point, we perhaps find that song form we are, alas, accustomed to. The music is filled with small electronic lines, those guitar arpeggios that seem to touch our vocal cords, the epileptic insistent organ and the trembling voice keeps repeating "saitin saitin saitin dens dens dens dens dens", the relentless drum with its precise and dragging rhythm. All this makes "Satan Said Dance" one of the best songs of the batch!
Remember when I initially described those acoustic soundscapes that our guys painted on the last record, the ones we wished would never end? In this album, all this is turned upside down and the musical interlude has changed: now there is an tiny organ with the “gypsy” accordion we have already heard before! "Underwater (you and me)" is the most tuneful, it could be released as a deceptive/bastard single to lure the unsuspecting! I award a prize to anyone who can follow the text in the booklet and understand what Mr. Ounsworth says in the long martial noisy closing track: "Five Easy Pieces"!
The songs of Some Loud Thunder seem cut out, disassembled, folded, wadded up, and put back together again, glued together with low-grade tape, smeared with melted glue stick and tortured with stapler points creating thus a "diabolic art attack interesting fascinating and sinister.” This album reminds a lot of the experimental groups that once flourished in Texas, Illinois, and New York America. The low sound quality (does anyone know or remember the Black Lips?!?!?). Those free-form creations by Red Crayola. Those schizoid perverse twists by the best Velvet Underground led by the Cale/Reed duo.
Who buys this album dares a lot and does so well but those who do not love such radical changes will not be enthusiastic for sure. I repeat, the CYHSY dared, and they did a great job by creating this sort of experimental flower power revival of the 60s in grey mode, and Some Loud Thunder is an album that should be appreciated for its edges and its angles, not for distracted listening and a too-easy discrediting comment that we will surely have on the tips of our tongues.
Forget now, the timid figures squashed in the canary yellow.
Now there is room for the dark grey and the bright white of a "some loud thunder”…
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Some Loud Thunder (03:47)
All this talking
You'd think I'd have something to say
But I'm just talking
Like a siren getting louder and farther away
From the energetic kids in the park
Yes that was me breaking glass and pretending to start
Something big
Some new taste
Did you wander
As my voice went from station to station to state?
Some loud thunder
Sometimes there's no telling if we're ok
There are buildings up for sale
On the other side of town which are falling down for people
To stand in their place; to try to make something great
That's just a part of the story
And it could be something complete someday
At the end of the quarry
Yes that was me digging holes for all the world to see
A cannonball as big as the ocean could come from the sky and slap us all on the teeth
But there's always more unless I'm mistaken
Tell me when do mouths close
And people gracefully retreat
New York calling
At the bottom of the ocean city gritting its teeth
But there's no telling
From the telepathic Mrs. Crying on live TV
Whoah the misanthropic topical arrangement that is met with a shark bite by the terminal patient
That's me
Am I late?
That's a part of the story
And it may be one day something complete
At the end of the quarry
I have dug a hole for all the world to see
A cannonball as big as the ocean could come from the sky and slap us all on the feet
But there's always more unless I'm mistaken
Tell me when do mouths close
And people gracefully retreat?
02 Emily Jean Stock (04:00)
You look so neat
Everyday is your birthday
You're such a treat
I'm just a drip in your faucet
Before the party's over
Before the highway road
Before the day begins
There's something I need to say
There's no one else
There is no one quite so perfect
When you're foreign bound
I am the coin in your pocket
Just wait for me the night through
Like I do for you
There's no one left to cry boo hoo
play it through okay?
You're not like me (not like me!)
It seems that people stick like flies to you
And my mystery (my mystery!)
Is just that I've no one to cling to
I think it's the Chinese New Year
Of this I'm fairly clear
And what better way to celebrate
Than run away with little boy blue?
Come along now now now now now
Don't think on an offer that you can't refuse
Yesterday's not quite the same let's make it plain
There are things that I can do (...things that I can do!)
(Some day we're going to make it all right
It is the radio that tells me so.)
It's just the radio, ohoho...
08 Arm and Hammer (02:00)
Amanda said you have to go
Amanda said it's time to go
She said I'm tired of being homeless, restless.
I confess
I am wrong
Listen, we are
Listen, we are
Listen, we are
We're
All
Talk
Talk
Mission we're on
Mission we're on
Mission we're on
Big
Dumb
Cock
Cock
Heaven be good
Heaven be good
Heaven be good
Hell
Stand
Up
Up
Mission we're on
Mission we're on
Mission we're on
Big
Dumb
Cock
10 Underwater (You and Me) (05:18)
Some songs see us sailing away
Navigating foreign borders
And climbing the waves
Someday your secret will be revealed
Am I the one you're thinking of
When the sun goes down into the water?
We're struck by the still of the moon
Hanging up there in the sky as though a balloon
Anchored by an astronaut's patriot tune
We will buy a ship and fly
To the land that would be rediscovered
We'll design a clever disguise
Or retreat to the bottom of the sea
We were destined to live out our lives
Underwater you and me
We'll escape beneath a violet sky
Clouds come
And night falls
You seem different
Oh my my!
Upon an endless trail of moonlight
They'll never realize that we have gone
We have dropped right out of
Out of sight
We'll design a clever disguise
Or retreat to the bottom of the sea
We were destined to live out our lives
Underwater you and me
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