Clap Your Hands Say Meh

Brooklyn-based indie rock ensemble Clap Your Hands Say Yeah kicks off its latest album, “Hysteria,” with a strikingly straightforward first song and single “Same Mistake,” which eases the album away from the youthful vocal-play and carnival-toybox clamor we once knew from the group.
Although the chronology of the album invites a listener into a series of stories, the band has never been about anecdotes. With forgettable chord progressions until the knee-bobbing “Yesterday, Never,” the album loses the heart and playfulness the band once executed so swimmingly.
Though an admirable flow keeps the album steady, the final seven-and-a-half-minute song, “Adam’s Plane,” is the only hint the album has toward something a little more classically off-kilter, but the violent piano plunking hardly suffices as a successful dénouement.
Overall, “Hysteria” is far from anything new for the once finely catered chaos that rattled from the act’s previous work. The album has its twinkles, but for the most part it yields pretty noise and saddening snore-inducers.