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Review: Clock Opera – Ways To Forget

It might only be November but that doesn’t stop Cherwell deciding that a thorough(ish) round up of 2012’s musical offerings is in order. Oh no sir-ee.

While 2012 has seen strong follow up albums for well established artists (Radlands from the Mystery Jets, Battle Born from The Killers) we’ve also seen an excellent wave of new music in the form of Alt J’s An Awesome Wave (a deserving Mercury Prize winner) and Django Django’s eponymous debut album. So who said the age of the album was done, dead and buried?
Choosing just one album out of the scores of deserving ones is an admittedly gargantuan task. In fact, it’s pretty much impossible so in offering Clock Opera’s debut album Ways to Forget I’m choosing one of scores of worthy albums. In fact in one week’s time this will probably be no longer my favourite album; I’m fickle that way.
Kicking off with opening track ‘Once and For All’ and its exultant climax, there remains something heart-wrenchingly uplifting about this album. Guy Connelly’s raw falsetto retains something of an angelic purity in the midst of frenetic synth and electro-keyboards.
Meanwhile ‘Move to the Mountains’ is a humble, quaint and gentle tale of leaving the city in the return to nature, and its staccato beat is ridiculously infectious.
‘Man Made’, on the other hand, is suffused with a synth-heavy euphoria and layered up sound. While none of this distinguishes it massively from other music floating out there, Clock Opera’s Ways to Forget represents a gloriously idiosyncratic variety.
You’ll probably think there are ‘better’ albums out there (and you may well be right) but the dynamism and innovation underpinning Ways to Forget surely marks it out as one of the year’s triumphs. And music is all about the subjective anyway, right?

It might only be November but that doesn’t stop Cherwell deciding that a thorough(ish) round up of 2012’s musical offerings is in order. Oh no sir-ee.

While 2012 has seen strong follow up albums for well established artists (Radlands from the Mystery Jets, Battle Born from The Killers) we’ve also seen an excellent wave of new music in the form of Alt J’s An Awesome Wave (a deserving Mercury Prize winner) and Django Django’s eponymous debut album. So who said the age of the album was done, dead and buried?

Choosing just one album out of the scores of deserving ones is an admittedly gargantuan task. In fact, it’s pretty much impossible so in offering Clock Opera’s debut album Ways to Forget I’m choosing one of scores of worthy albums. In fact in one week’s time this will probably be no longer my favourite album; I’m fickle that way.

Kicking off with opening track ‘Once and For All’ and its exultant climax, there remains something heart-wrenchingly uplifting about this album. Guy Connelly’s raw falsetto retains something of an angelic purity in the midst of frenetic synth and electro-keyboards.

Meanwhile ‘Move to the Mountains’ is a humble, quaint and gentle tale of leaving the city in the return to nature, and its staccato beat is ridiculously infectious.‘Man Made’, on the other hand, is suffused with a synth-heavy euphoria and layered up sound. While none of this distinguishes it massively from other music floating out there, Clock Opera’s Ways to Forget represents a gloriously idiosyncratic variety.

You’ll probably think there are ‘better’ albums out there (and you may well be right) but the dynamism and innovation underpinning Ways to Forget surely marks it out as one of the year’s triumphs. And music is all about the subjective anyway, right?

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