Review | Fifth album by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is a deeply personal work
CYHSY are now effectively a solo project, and the clear vision of sole remaining member Alec Ounsworth shines through this release
The Tourist
Undertow
The fifth studio album from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah sees the artsy indie rockers as a very different proposition to when they released their critically acclaimed debut, more than a decade ago. With drummer Sean Greenhalgh having left after the release of 2014’s Only Run, CYHSY is now very much the solo project of the remaining original member, Alec Ounsworth. While the frontman’s flamboyant warbling remains the same, CYHSY’s unique off-kilter poppiness twitches a little more chaotically on The Tourist (the band will forever be compared with David Byrne and his Talking Heads). Mixed by Mercury Rev’s David Fridmann, the album’s 10 tracks were written, recorded and performed by Ounsworth during what the songwriter describes as a particularly emotional time in his life, and it’s clear this deeply personal record was difficult to make. The Tourist could have sounded disjointed and incomplete in lesser (clapping) hands, but Ounsworth’s clear vision and confidence shine through, the dreamy melancholy slinking with a poppy acoustic groove throughout.