Clap Your Hands Say Yeah garners praise for latest album

A new lineup has brought a new sound, but Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is still drawing praise from major music outlets such as Spin and NPR.
A new lineup has brought a new sound, but Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is still drawing praise from major music outlets such as Spin and NPR.

The coolest indie rock group to come out of Connecticut College is drawing rave reviews for its new album.

“Only Run” is the fourth self-produced album by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, whose five founding members met at Connecticut College. Released on June 3, it has been praised by Spin magazine as their “most eccentric, diverse sounding record to date.”

With the new sound comes a new lineup. The band is led by singer and guitarist Alec Ounsworth ’00, and includes work from drummer Sean Greenhalgh ’01. The other three members of the original group — Robbie Guertin ’02 and twin brothers Lee and Tyler Sargent ’00 — left the band in 2012 to pursue other interests.

The first album since 2011’s “Hysterical,” “Only Run,” has been reviewed by Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe and NPR, which praised Clap Your Hands Say Yeah for finding “a new way to deepen and vary its approach, in ways that reflect a relentless pursuit of invention and reinvention.”

To accompany the album release, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah will embark on a summer tour across the United States and Europe.

The band, which grew out the College’s student-run club Musicians Organized for Band Rights on Campus (MOBROC), burst onto the music scene in 2005 with its eponymous debut album. The album is notable for its critical acclaim — influential music website Pitchfork rated the album 9/10 — and because of how it was distributed. Without a record deal, the band’s profile grew by word of mouth and through online music blogs, putting them at the forefront of the genre now referred to as “blog rock.”

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s second album, “Some Loud Thunder,” marked the band’s highest Billboard debut, reaching No. 47 in February 2007 with 19,000 copies sold.

The band returned to campus in 2008 to perform on Tempel Green as part of a kickoff celebration for the Campaign for Connecticut College.



June 23, 2014