For better or for worse, New York’s Clap Your Hands Say Yeah will be forever intertwined with the initial rush of hype-based “blog bands.” In the middle of this past decade they were part of the first wave of bands to ride the praise of the internet music community to larger audiences. They eventually became poster children (along with, to a certain extent, Tapes ‘n Tapes and Cold War Kids) for the backlash people had against “blog bands.” I don’t know if they would have reached the level of success they did without the publicity they received from certain sites, but I do know that their debut self titled CD was well deserving of the attention.

With its angular, Talking Heads-like songs and lead singer Alec Ounsworth’s high pitch wails, the disc is as exciting and engaging today as it was when it came out. Aside from the campy opening song “Clap Your Hands!,” the disc is solid straight through and showed a band ready to take the world by storm. With a little help of from some well regarded taste makers the band did just that, even if it came with the price of dealing with the backlash by the same outlets which propped them up in the first place. No matter what people said about their quick ascent, with amazing songs like “The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth” and “Heavy Metal,” the band proved their great talent and created a disc that can stand on its own merit, even without the hype.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah “The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth” (mp3)

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