Album Review

Clock Opera – Ways to Forget

• 25th Apr 2012

Picture this scene: quirky indie boy in quirky indie film realises he must have quirky indie girl. He must tell her this, before he loses her forever. So he starts running… Now imagine the soundtrack that kicks in at this point. You can almost hear it can’t you? Urgent, fast-paced and soaringly emotional.

That song you’re hearing is Clock Opera’s debut album ‘Ways to Forget’. Opening track ‘Once and For All’ is what put this scene in my head, but it really could be any song from this offering. It’s a relentless collection – our poor little indie dude just keeps running and running…

Meticulously produced and unashamedly melodramatic, Clock Opera’s music is a blend of electronics and samples over acoustic drums and bass. Main man Guy Connelly’s voice is bombastically operatic, sometimes high, sometimes low, always with the intensity turned up to 11.

Connelly had created a fair amount of anticipation for this album with some of his previous offerings. Working alone with a range of oddly collected samples – citing auditory sources as varied as the sounds of bouncing basketballs or closing draws of cutlery – he has released a charming body of intriguing little musical pieces over the past few years.

Now, Clock Opera is a four-piece band. The new drums, bass and extra vocals definitely helps fill out the sound, but unfortunately they also seem to blend it too far into bland. It’s difficult to differentiate the unique recorded samples, and instead we get one big pop sound, repeated in slightly different ways. It’s anthemic stadium music and, for me, a little ordinary.

The band seems to have spurned subtlety, variety and intrigue, opting instead to carry their listeners away on a wave of perfectly polished passion. It’s Keane does Phantom of the Opera: some might call it pompous and overblown, others will love it.

They certainly loved it at Scala in London last night, where Clock Opera launched the album to a sold-out crowd of the capital’s brightest and youngest Bright Young Things (I’ve never seen so many hats worn with such unselfconscious aplomb). This is music that works well live. Music to bounce up and down to, bellow along to and generally be carried away by. By the end of the set, made up almost completely of songs from the album, Connelly had the crowd whipped into a Wembley-like frenzy. All this despite a range of technical difficulties that made the opening track ‘White Noise’ with it’s chorus of “’Cause I’m waiting for you” uncomfortably appropriate.

Tellingly, the highlight of the evening was ‘Let Go the Lifeboats’, a B-side that hasn’t made it onto the album. The frenetic pace dropped, the drums stopped and Connelly’s voice dropped to a raspy whisper. Accompanied by “our friend Nick” playing a saw, which created a haunting warble that combined sweetly with the birdlike electronics, it was a moment of delightful respite. It was a nice break from the routine – and perhaps one these guys could take more often.