clap your hands say yeah

"All this talking. You'd think I'd have something to say. But I'm just talking, like a siren getting louder and farther away."

That's the aural imagery that opens Some Loud Thunder, the new record from indie rockers Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Taken from the record's friendly, poppy title track, the lines become a credo for the whole album. CYHSY singer and lyricist Alec Ounsworth brings an urgent gravitas to his siren songs but at the same shrugs off what he's saying.

That opener is a highlight. Full of melody and bounce, "Some Loud Thunder" worries about something cataclysmic looming in the future ("a cannonball as big as the ocean could come from the sky and slap us all on the teeth"), articulates a smidgen of hope ("there's always more unless I'm mistaken"), but finally advocates retreating ("when do mouths close and people gracefully retreat?"). Ounsworth plays the siren whose voice is ignored.

It's a provocative warning sign that you can dance to, a song that would have fit on an early Talking Heads album. Of course Talking Heads are the band that CYHSY is constantly compared to. Ounsworth sounds a lot like David Byrne and the band brings an artsy sensibility to its punk sound.

But while the Talking Heads embraced world beats and new wave, CYHSY draw on more basic genres like blues and funk. "Arm and Hammer" is avant garde blues and begs Captain Beefheart comparisons. "Satan Said Dance" and "Yankee Go Home" both have threatening , old-west-invoking guitar lines and slow verses that build toward climactic refrains; thematically and sonically, both sound like they could be taken from a Pixies record.

An outstanding rock record from a band for whom "indie" means something more than just a genre. As was the case with their debut two years ago, CYHSY have self-released the record and maintained creative and artistic control over all elements of production. In a musical year that's sure to be dominated by high-profile reunions (The Police! The Stooges! Crowded House!), CYHSY is a band that's doing something new and fresh and authentic.