* Don’t bother **Worth a listen ***Turn it up ****Buy it ***** Exceptional

Let me save the general readership from wasting any more precious time: This CD sucks, don’t buy it. There. Now for the long version.

Experimental rock is an ambiguous term. Typically when I hear the phrase, I think of rock music that’s cutting edge — the kind of music that might not be consumable at first, but grows on you because it’s the future of rock and roll.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah may be the future or rock and roll, but if that’s the case, I’m out. I was not previously familiar with their music, but I think genuinely stellar music doesn’t have prerequisites.

I automatically disqualify Clap’s sophomore album, Some Loud Thunder, from the honor and distinction for being classified as such. Experimental has the immediate implication that this is something that you’ve never heard before, but Thunder is an experiment that’s been conducted time and time again, with better results from more prestigious artists.

The style is the disastrous marriage of Radiohead and Joy Division that ended in annulment minutes later — and Clap is clearly the embittered fifth wheel.

Thunder begins with the discordant title track, the kind of thing that blows out your speakers in the name of art but actually contributes pretty much nothing. A couple tracks later, “Love Song No. 7” might cause ponder, but not for long.

The gimmicky “Satan Said Dance” provides a dark, if unspectacular, chuckle as it bleeds into the tremendously boring second half of the record. The lush “Goodbye to Mother and the Cover” may graduate the LP to mediocre status, even if it doesn’t give Thom Yorke a run for his money. The minimalist approach to experimentalism builds up but doesn’t pay off with “Yankee Go Home” and attempts a pinnacle with album closer “Five Easy Pieces” to no avail.

The album isn’t a fiasco, per se — just an addition to the unfortunate trend of pretentious prog-rock masturbation that seems to be the only thing keeping modern alternative rock afloat. While no spectacular conclusions of modern rock have been reached with Clap’s latest entry into the foray, it’s worth a listen if you’re a Radiohead fan without refuge. If you’re not, check out Yorke’s worthwhile The Eraser. To relate to the skater demographic, I provide a simple warning: Don’t bother with the posers.

— Jeff Tripoli