For all intents and purposes,
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
has always been the vision of lead singer/songwriter
Alec Ounsworth
. However, with the departure of original drummer
Sean Greenhalgh
after 2014's
Only Run
,
CYHSY
technically became the sole creative property of
Ounsworth
. It is his voice, both literally and creatively, that permeates all of the band's fifth studio album, 2017's
The Tourist
. Recorded, written, and performed by
alone, the album gains some semblance of collaborative continuity via the presence of
Mercury Rev
's
Dave Fridmann
, who mixed the album and who previously worked on
and the group's 2007 effort,
Some Loud Thunder
. Primarily, you get the sense that
's sanguine, intricately crafted sound has finally been boiled down to
's own singularly poetic, nasal-pitched aesthetic.
However, that doesn't mean that the band's sound has undergone any major transformation. As on past
albums, cuts like "Down (Is Where I Want to Be)," "Better Off," and "The Vanity of Trying" still bring to mind a combination of
Elliott Smith
's ruminative folk,
Echo & the Bunnymen
's moody '80s rock, and a bit of
Taking Tiger Mountain
-era
Brian Eno
. There's a tactile, organic quality to many of the tracks here, such as on "Unfolding Above Celibate Moon (Los Angeles Nursery Rhyme)," in which
, doing his best
Bob Dylanesque
coo, sings of the travails of Hollywood life, his voice set against a buoyant analog-sounding keyboard riff that has the cadence of an astronaut skipping weightless across the surface of the Moon. Emphatically, the song ends with a yearning burst of harmonica and fuzz-soaked guitar squelch, as if
were some kind of one-man psych-rock band. Similarly, he splits the difference between kinetic,
Talking Heads
-style nerd-funk and
Radiohead-esque
art rock fantasia on the dancy "Fireproof," layering a multi-tracked vocal melody, kinetic rubber-band guitars, and rhythmic finger-snap accents onto a shimmery synth backdrop. While the holistic craftsmanship of
's musicality is impressive, ultimately it's his anguished, romantic vocal croon that sticks with you on
, ever dichotomously imbued with both a deep sense of loneliness and a pop-centric sense of self-determination. ~ Matt Collar