Clap Your Hands, Say YEAH!!

The great thing about music is that it's so hard to predict what will happen next, which new bands will enter the limelight with a brilliant release as is out of nowhere. No hype, just by word of mouth! In my opinion, alongside the strong debut by British Editors, I find a weird group that suddenly appeared on the rock scene in New York to be the most interesting new act of 2005:

The Brooklyn-based five-piece band Clap Your Hand Say Yeah made one of the most remarkable entries on the music scene in years. Not that they sold millions, like Nirvana, or made a lot of noise in the press, like Libertines. But the fact that the band was hardly known outside a few rock clubs in New York city when the summer started, recording and releasing the debut album all by themselves - with no record label backing them - and still making such a splash in the rock press around the world.

Their self-titled album was not only one of the best debut albums this year but one of the strongest albums overall. Musically it borrows heavily from a number of classic rock groups, artists like Talking Heads and Tom Waits spring to mind and every now and then a touch of Velvet Underground. This is a playful, unpredictable album and it has slowly dawned on me that this might very well become the "Remain in light" for a new generation of music lovers, much the way the classic Talking Heads album became for my generation some 25 years ago.

One of the most impressive debuts in a long time and one that spells greatness in the future, I can hardly wait for what Clap Your Hands Say Yeah will come up with next!

Heirs of Interpol?

Back in 2002, Interpol surprised the rock world with their potent debut album Turn on the bright lights that brought back the dark and moody rock of the 1980s (Joy Division, The Smiths) and mixed it with the more energetic guitar rock of the last decade (Fugazi). Though they didn't succeed with their follow-up Antics, they still set the standard that so many bands have tried to eclipse the last couple of years. Until now.

From out of nowhere, the city of Birmingham in the UK to be more precise, a quartet of young men - calling themselves Editors - suddenly appeared in 2005. And with a debut album, The Back Room released on Kitchenware Records in July, that can rival the best of Interpol!

With Editors the influence of 1980s bands, such as Joy Division and Echo and The Bunnymen, is even more pronounced than with Interpol. But they're also more English in style bringing in some elements of the contemporary British indie rock, in particular the intense guitars, from bands such as Bloc Party.

There is no denying that Joy Division has been a guiding star for Editors. Among the more typical Joy Division-inspired songs are the excellent Blood - where singer Tom Smith sounds just like Ian Curtis - and the wonderful All sparks where drummer Ed Lay pounds away like Stephen Morris did on Dead Souls, 25 years ago. Simply brilliant!

But the album is so much more than just Joy Division rip-off, it blends styles and intense walls of guitars to make the sound both dark and intense. The album contains a nice mixture of slower, more thoughtful melodies, such as Open your arms - an almost Smithsian song with Morrissey-like singing and reflections, and more uptempo tracks such as the opener Lights, with guitars sounding fainty like early U2!

There's nothing believable in being honest
So cover your lies up with another promise

Blood runs through your veins, that's where our similarity ends
Blood runs through our veins.
[Blood]

Most of the songs on this album are (hit?) Single material so it's difficult to pick out one or two highlights, but personally the ones that sit best in my ears are the uptempo Someone says and the before mentioned Open your arms and Blood.

Editors The Back Room may not be the most original album of the year, but it will get high on my list of Albums of the year!