Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Queen’s Social Club, Sheffield
06/09/2011

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah emerged more than half a decade ago as the archetypal buzz-band. The hype that followed their formation in 2004 was generated online, and led to substantial press coverage on both sides of the Atlantic. Their eponymous debut album of shuffling, unpretentious guitar-pop even made it into the UK top 40. But it’s now been four years since they released its not-so-rapturously-received follow-up, ‘Some Loud Thunder’, and you can’t help thinking that buzz has faded to a distant hum.

Perhaps CYHSY are thinking that too, as they start tonight slightly sluggishly. They seem to lack self-belief, verses slur into choruses with a frustrating lack of fanfare. It’s all very hard to get excited about until the scorching riff of ‘In This Home On Ice’ reminds the audience how much life this band have in them. Their imminent third album’s title track, ‘Hysterical’, turns the energy up another notch, with a sludgy bassline that oozes from the stage. By the time CYHSY reach the awkward indie-disco of ‘The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth’, they’re receiving a raucous response. Its fuzzy hook becomes a mass sing-along moment as hardcore fanatics hurl themselves around the room in the most twee manner imaginable. It’s one of several emotionally uplifting peaks in a show that tends elsewhere to be slightly uninteresting.

It’s not that the songs aren’t well-written, because CYHSY often combine energy with understatement by thrusting a melody into your mind without letting it bug you to death. What tonight’s performance lacks, however, is personality. The band seem too timid to really let go on stage and give these songs the delivery they deserve. Ultimately, this comeback reminds us of CYHSY’s potential, but still leaves us puzzled as to why much of it remains unfulfilled.

Robert Cooke