It feels like half a lifetime since Clap Your Hands Say Yeah were the reluctant buzz-band du jour. Actually, it was the best part of ten years ago that Alec Onsworth’s scrappy crew broke through with their self-titled debut – dividing opinion and causing us to wonder whether the internet’s capacity for elevating musicians from obscurity to maddening ubiquity was a good thing.
With hindsight, the ‘hype’ seems almost quaint: this was before Twitter, Instagram et al, when it was still possible to ignore those aspects of pop culture that annoyed you. Good luck with that nowadays (hashtag: getoutofmyface).
Clap Your Hands sank quickly back to the bottom of the indie fish-tank (to their immense gratitude apparently). In the interim, they’ve toured constantly, but only put out a further two LPs (plus side projects). Their fourth album is perhaps their most adventurous yet, with its tingling synths, jerky rhythms and, on stand-outs ‘As Always’ and ‘Impossible Request’, what could almost pass for catchy pop songs. For those who checked out on the group after 2007’s bleak and introverted Some Loud Thunder, Only Ruin is the perfect moment to re-engage. It’s perky and busy and fizzles with ambition. A decade on, perhaps CYHSY are about to become the band we always wanted them to be.

OUT NOW.