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Track Listings
| 1. Some Loud Thunder |
| 2. Emily Jean Stock |
| 3. Mama, Won't You Keep Them Castles in the Air and Burning? |
| 4. Love Song No. 7 |
| 5. Satan Said Dance |
| 6. Upon Encountering the Crippled Elephant |
| 7. Goodbye to Mother and the Cove |
| 8. Arm and Hammer |
| 9. Yankee Go Home |
| 10. Underwater (You and Me) |
| 11. Five Easy Pieces |
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
The first time you listen to Some Loud Thunder, the second album from Brooklyn's Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, is a pretty weird experience. Oh, sure, many of the band's key hallmarks – hallmarks that made their self-titled debut a name to drop for everyone from David Bowie to influential indie webzine Pitchfork are present and correct: shambolic guitar jangle, drums that patter around like confused puppies, and the undulating outsider yelp of vocalist Alex Ounsworth. But this is a very different record to its predecessor, one that forsakes much of the band's deranged sing-along charm in favour of offbeat experimentation and peculiar production techniques. It's hard to shake the impression that the presence of Flaming Lips producer Dave Friedmann is sometimes a destabilising influence: "Emily Jean Stock" could, you feel, be neatly orchestrated '60s Technicolor beat-pop, but its distorted drums and thin production leave it feeling drab and grey. Persist, though, and there are some great songs here: the pulsing freak-disco of "Satan Said Dance", or "Yankee Go Home" – an apparent anthem to anti-Americanism that rises in awkward, yet oddly elegaic crescendos. --Louis Pattison
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I guess that a follow up to the eponymously titled debut was always going to be difficult. What do you do? More of the same and get slated for being unadventurous or experiment and get slated for not putting out the same material. Whatever they did Clap Your Hands were going to get a serious mauling form some critics and reading around on the internet that's sure what they've got - a serious mauling from SOME critics.
Is it deserved? Absolutely not in my opinion! I can see why some will not like this. Frankly if you didn't get beyond the first track you'd really, really struggle to like this. And the first track's why this album isn't worth five stars because the rest of it is! More of this in a minute. However what we have here is an excellent collection of songs that DOES bear comparison in quality to their debut. There are some excellent tracks here ("Love Song No. 7", "Mama Won't You Keep The Castles In The Air And Burning", "Satan Said Dance", "Goodbye To Mother And The Cove" and "Underwater" stand out for me). They ARE still quirky even though there is a lot more production and effort been ploughed into this and it HAS inevitably lost some of the Lo-Fi brilliance of it's predecessor.
Okay then, Track 1. Well frankly the less said about this the better! I found this a real turn off (literally as I found it painful to listen to!). They have taken what seems like a decent song (when you listen hard enough - which I suggest if you want to keep you hearing intact that you don't) and deliberately distorted it. It really is difficult to listen to without earmuffs on, full of static and a weird metallic lustre that becomes painful after a few seconds. When I turned the CD on for the first play I was very, very disappointed. It took until about track 5 on the first listen to get over it as I was constantly listening for more static as I thought my CD must be duff. But it was deliberate! How daft! What they ought to realise is that by putting something so horrible upfront they are BOUND to aggravate critics! Maybe they'll learn next time.
That's out of the way then - phew! As for the rest of the album, personally i love it. Experimental yes, but great tunes and a pounding rhythm on most songs which most bands can't accomplish without becoming overly loud. I can see that hiring their producer was a mistake and they should banish him back to the hopelessly overrated Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev whence he came. You can hear his influence in lots of little background add-ons such as bells etc. Some of these work but quite often they don't add anything meaningful to the otherwise excellent music.
Overall, this is a very good follow up and a damned sight better than I'd hoped for. Don't listen to the critics that slate this. Listen for yourself. It took me three listens to start really enjoying this and the more I've listened the more I like! A good buy for the discerning ear (apart from track 1)! (7/10)
Is it deserved? Absolutely not in my opinion! I can see why some will not like this. Frankly if you didn't get beyond the first track you'd really, really struggle to like this. And the first track's why this album isn't worth five stars because the rest of it is! More of this in a minute. However what we have here is an excellent collection of songs that DOES bear comparison in quality to their debut. There are some excellent tracks here ("Love Song No. 7", "Mama Won't You Keep The Castles In The Air And Burning", "Satan Said Dance", "Goodbye To Mother And The Cove" and "Underwater" stand out for me). They ARE still quirky even though there is a lot more production and effort been ploughed into this and it HAS inevitably lost some of the Lo-Fi brilliance of it's predecessor.
Okay then, Track 1. Well frankly the less said about this the better! I found this a real turn off (literally as I found it painful to listen to!). They have taken what seems like a decent song (when you listen hard enough - which I suggest if you want to keep you hearing intact that you don't) and deliberately distorted it. It really is difficult to listen to without earmuffs on, full of static and a weird metallic lustre that becomes painful after a few seconds. When I turned the CD on for the first play I was very, very disappointed. It took until about track 5 on the first listen to get over it as I was constantly listening for more static as I thought my CD must be duff. But it was deliberate! How daft! What they ought to realise is that by putting something so horrible upfront they are BOUND to aggravate critics! Maybe they'll learn next time.
That's out of the way then - phew! As for the rest of the album, personally i love it. Experimental yes, but great tunes and a pounding rhythm on most songs which most bands can't accomplish without becoming overly loud. I can see that hiring their producer was a mistake and they should banish him back to the hopelessly overrated Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev whence he came. You can hear his influence in lots of little background add-ons such as bells etc. Some of these work but quite often they don't add anything meaningful to the otherwise excellent music.
Overall, this is a very good follow up and a damned sight better than I'd hoped for. Don't listen to the critics that slate this. Listen for yourself. It took me three listens to start really enjoying this and the more I've listened the more I like! A good buy for the discerning ear (apart from track 1)! (7/10)
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Don't normally write reviews but feel I need to re-balance some of the poor reviews posted and echo Sameer's comments earlier. Reading them I can't quite believe some of the reviewers have listened to the album but guess everyone has different taste.
I really liked the first album so was excited about getting this. At first I wasn't sure about this album, but not anymore - just give it a chance. Sure there are a few poor tracks on the album as with most albums(tracks 4, 6, 8) but there are also plenty of gems hiding here (esp tracks 1, 3, 7, 9, 11). If you're still not sure, try track 9 (Yankee Go Home) which is immediately likeable and one of the standouts before giving up on this.
In a year of 2nd albums feel this one is 10x better than the disappointing Arcade Fire, Bloc Party and Arctic Monkeys albums.. I rated this 5 stars to balance out the other reviews (1 star?) but honestly this is probably a 4 star effort overall.
I really liked the first album so was excited about getting this. At first I wasn't sure about this album, but not anymore - just give it a chance. Sure there are a few poor tracks on the album as with most albums(tracks 4, 6, 8) but there are also plenty of gems hiding here (esp tracks 1, 3, 7, 9, 11). If you're still not sure, try track 9 (Yankee Go Home) which is immediately likeable and one of the standouts before giving up on this.
In a year of 2nd albums feel this one is 10x better than the disappointing Arcade Fire, Bloc Party and Arctic Monkeys albums.. I rated this 5 stars to balance out the other reviews (1 star?) but honestly this is probably a 4 star effort overall.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Yes it's less accessible than the first album, but sometimes us listeners just have to try harder. Many of the things from the first album are still there. David Byrne-yelp of lead singer? Check. Lurching rhythms and odd instrumentation? Check. But this time there is gratuitous obfuscation. Listen to the first track and it sounds like it's being broadcast via an old crystal wireless. However, there are some more accessible tracks. "Satan Said Dance" is a cracker, sounding as it does like it's been recorded using an old Atari and "Underwater (You and Me)" is about as close to singalong as CYHSY are going to get. So on the one hand you can sit there, brain-dead, being fed musical mush by The Man (or Simon Cowell, whoever is the most offensive) alternatively you can listen to something a little more challenging. The choice is yours.......
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Also balancing the injustice
Like another reviewer, I am only writing this with the intention to counter-balance some of the unfairly poor reviews. Read more
Published on 18 July 2009 by Dr. D. McCaffer
How/Why did this get released? Just two tracks on which to feast!
I missed out on their debut (Yep, I must have been on Mars), but from all accounts it was a bit of a starry affair, pomp and circumstance (or should that circus, as in media..?). Read more
Published on 22 Mar 2009 by Kev Aldersay
It must be a taste thing
I can not warm to this album. I want to, I'm playing it over and over, giving it a break for a couple of days and trying again but no luck. Ok, I thought, try them live. Read more
Published on 12 July 2007 by Pearce
Shockingly bad 2nd album failure.
An atrocious album, with droning noise done better by Frog Eyes or Sunset Rubdown. More like "Some Quiet Stomach Rumbling", there's nothing thunderous about this album. Read more
Published on 14 Jun 2007 by Useless Article
A second great helping of muscial genius...
Periodically a great band arrives to readdress issues lost within the depths of musical production and promotion. Clap your Hands Say Yeah are one of these bands. Read more
Published on 23 Feb 2007 by Sameer Jain
distorted masterpiece
Unaligned to a major label, CYHSY's Some Loud Thunder kicks off with a track so warped and distorted that it's an affirmation of their independence and refusal to comply. Read more
Published on 15 Feb 2007 by C. Allen
Give it a try
In the old days we, the listeners, didn't want the same album with the same songs on it, churned out release after release. A band was allowed, and expected, to grow. Read more
Published on 15 Feb 2007 by Lilly T
Sometimes loud
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah debuted with winning, chirrupy melodies that were catchy and easy to recall.
Be warned: Now they are serious, and their music reflects that. Read more
Be warned: Now they are serious, and their music reflects that. Read more
Published on 3 Feb 2007 by E. A Solinas
An impressive album. Quirky riffs, good lyrics.
An impressive album. Quirky riffs, good lyrics. Very reminiscent of early talking heads, and Television (maybe). Read more
Published on 2 Feb 2007 by M. Hamer
Clap Your Hands Say I'm Not Sure Yet.....
At first this album really unsettled me. Dave Friedmann (producer Flaming Lips) has taken this wonderful carefree band, who's first album seemed to roll from tracks 1 to 12 with... Read more
Published on 1 Feb 2007 by Rorz
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