‘Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’ visit to be an early highlight

Date Published: 30-Dec-2011

AS we bid farewell to 2011, it’s time to look forward to some gigs in 2012. An early highlight of the New Year will be the visit of Brooklyn’s Clap Your Hands Say Yeah to Róisín Dubh on Friday, January 27.

Blessed with one of the best names in indie music, the quintet made an instant impact with their self-titled debut in 2005. Lead singer Alec Ounsworth sounds like a more demented version of Talking Heads’ David Byrne – an achievement in itself – but there’s no doubting the quality of their tunes. Almost seven years after its release, The Skin of my Yellow Country Teeth is still a guaranteed floor-filler at indie discos.

The band returned with Some Loud Thunder in 2007, and the title track saw Ounsworth restrain his voice at the start before unleashing it in the chorus. There’s an urgency as to how the band fall in behind him that suggest they’ll be an intriguing prospect live.

After a hectic few years of recording and touring, a decision was made to take a short hiatus to allow the band members time for general decompression and extracurricular musical activity. In July 2009, CYHSY played Japan’s Fuji Rock Festival and then temporarily closed up shop.

The band returned this year with Hysterical, and the brief interval served its purpose, instilling in the members of CYHSY a renewed sense of conviction and belief in the band. For his part, Ounsworth came to “an understanding of why the band was important to people and why it is important to people”.

This promises to be night of high-energy, guitar-driven music and Ounsworth’s inimitable vocals.