Hysterical brings back the much-missed Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, who blew up the blogsphere in 2005 with their self-titled debut, a love letter to indie rock of... more

Hysterical brings back the much-missed Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, who blew up the blogsphere in 2005 with their self-titled debut, a love letter to indie rock of the previous two decades, and its more difficult but often rewarding follow-up, 2007’s psychedelic Some Loud Thunder. Gone is some of the experimentation of those albums, but in their place is a grounded focus on the tunes themselves. Whereas it would have been tough to really hear Alec Ounsworth’s keening voice on the radio in the past, he sounds yearning in a humanistic way in songs like “Misspent Youth.” The songs are catchy throughout, and they still manage to kick up plenty of sonic dust in songs like the terrific “Maniac,” in which keyboards whirl around Ounsworth’s trademark coo, until a gnarled psych riff knocks the song into another realm. The best part about Hysterical is that it sounds like a unified whole rather than the sort of mixtape approach of the previous albums, more orchestrated and restrained. Speaking of mixtapes, plenty of songs across Hysterical should fit the bill, from the freewheeling “Yesterday, Never” to the buzzing, slip-sliding title-track.