Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Fiercely indie Clap Your Hands Say Yeah managed to become the buzz band of 2005 without label support of any kind—and maybe even partially because of going it alone. Not believing the hype, or at least not feeding into it, CYHSY managed to avert the dreaded sophomore slump with an even more eccentric disc the second time out. Some Loud Thunder, released last winter, has enough dissonant thunderheads, noisy tangents, and cheerful indulgences to scare off the dilettantes, but also lots of fresh charmers from Alec Ounsworth, whose idiosyncratic squawk remains on the intriguing end of the art-rock annoyance scale. There are melodies to be had among the blips, gongs, and accordion weirdness, from the T. Heads-like electroglide workout "Satan Said Dance" to "Mama, Won't You Keep Them Castles in the Air and Burning?," which sounds like a twisted version of Phil Spector's Wall of Sound. Opening will be Elvis (real name) Perkins In Dearland, a quartet led by the son of quirkily brilliant actor Anthony Perkins (of Psycho fame, who died of AIDS in 1992) and photographer/actress Berry Berenson (who died in one of the hijacked planes that hit the World Trade Center almost exactly nine years later). Perkins's extraordinary solo debut, Ash Wednesday (XL), shaped and informed by his parents' tragic deaths, is appropriately somber and world-weary, but far from morose. It's also a gorgeous, classic-sounding folk-pop album, full of eloquent observations, haunting melodies, and a riveting vocal style mixing Rufus Wainwright and John Lennon. 18+.
Thu., Oct. 4, 8 p.m., 2007