After listening to the first track of “Some Loud Thunder” you might be tempted to rush out and buy new headphones. Surely it can’t be intentional to have that much static in the background — right?

With their second release, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and lead singer Alec Ounsworth are throwing a lot of shit at the wall: some harmonica here, some clanking cutlery there, a stray trumpet whinny, quite a few blips and Kraftwerk-like computer effects, and yes, more than a little static (think John Lennon’s voice on “I Am the Walrus”). Not all of it sticks. The melodies are still there, the energy less so, but now you have to go looking for both.

Put it this way: If, in all earnestness, you were to name your book “Read It and Weep,” I had better be bawling by page 12. And if you were to name your band, “Clap Your Hands Say Yeah” . . . you get the idea.

Indeed, the beauty of their 2005 self-titled debut was the group’s apparent earnestness in taking on the ridiculous. When, on the track “Is This Love?”, Ounsworth sang, “You’re so much different than me, this I know,” and his voice cracked three times on the last word, you might have been laughing if you weren’t so affected. It’s also the reason that “Upon this Tidal Wave Of Young Blood” was one of the best anti-war songs in the past few years. Amid all the cleverness and sarcasm, we needed someone who sounded on the verge of a mental breakdown to remind us: “But upon this tidal wave (Oh God! Oh God!), young blood.”

The first album reaffirmed that having fun can be an act of rebellion. In this respect Clap Your Hands has something in common with Arcade Fire, which taught that anyone who says you can’t stay awake forever is a dirty liar. Is it a coincidence that these two bands had the most successful indie debuts since the start of the current war?

If the great new Arcade Fire single “Intervention” is any indication, that group’s forthcoming album “Neon Bible” will pick up the banner about where “Funeral” left off. Over a crushing background of pipe organs, the song explores the conscience of a mercenary soldier who is “working for the church while my family dies.”

Sometimes bluntness is a virtue.

“Some Loud Thunder,” on the other hand, wanders through more difficult and hermetic terrain. Static aside, the initial title track is just about the only danceable tune. The best tracks are the slow ones. “Love Song No. 7,” for example, is a fine piano ballad that declares, with cynicism worthy of Thom Yorke, that we’re all “safe and sound.” “Goodbye to the Mother & the Cover” is gentle and beautiful, putting to good use the band’s capacity for strange, repetitive backgrounds. “Yankee Go Home,” the album’s most political song, is a bluesy, three-chord jam that just plain works. The last song, “Five Easy Pieces,” allows the guitars to waltz and shuffle around Ounsworth as he basically chants the same note over and over.

Unfortunately, the strident production values begin to intrude on otherwise good songs like “Emily Jean Stock” and “Arm & Hammer.” Meanwhile, “Underwater (You & Me)” starts off well but turns out to be a one-trick pony that goes on far too long. In a sense, the album title says it all. The band does not seem to be after lightning flashes of focused brilliance, but rather an ominous diffusion of noise and chaos.

At the risk of scoring the obvious point, none of these tracks will actually tempt the listener to clap his or her hands. The prevailing mood, as on “Mama, Won’t You Keep Them Castles in the Air and Burning?”, is a quasi-political paranoia:

“And I’m touched by the same sad feeling of dread

Just to know that you can’t wait to see me dead

An idea in your head and a compass in your hand

On a mission to a foreign land.”

Unfortunately, this sentiment is not so hard to find these days.

If nothing else, “Some Loud Thunder” is an interesting album with several spine-tingling songs. By the end, it provides enough rewarding moments to justify your time and money — as long as, after hearing it, you didn’t go out and buy new headphones by mistake.