2017 is the year of renewal for former Pitchfork deities: Dirty Projectors, Animal Collective, and now Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, whose 2005 debut caused major palpitations in the world of noughties blog rock. Last remaining member Alec Ounsworth’s fifth album begins with a promise of recalibration: The Pilot and A Chance to Cure are lusciously produced, but that spaciousness quickly resolves into knotty, ambling anthems of frustration.
His voice is a caw which teeters on the edge of hysteria, and he certainly sings with intent: Down (Is Where I Want to Be) drags its listener into the pits of despair with him. But where his manic energy was once applied to buoyant pop, there is now a cluttered chaos, any prettiness scribbled out and made more complicated, distorted. Ounsworth’s identity still remains – “It’s no good trying to be someone you’re not,” he sings on Unfolding Above Celibate Moon – but this fidgety, off-kilter return is exhausting.
