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!