Exit Strategy

My thoughts on …….. Exit Strategy

There are many criticisms of streaming sites like Spotify which underfund up and coming artists in particular, while taking already established stars into a new orbit of financial sustainability.

For me though, I’ve regularly used Spotify in particular, and YouTube to a lesser extent, to find sources of new music. Quite often it’s a purely random occurrence.

Click on a Playlist someone else has made up, recognise a few artists and then maybe select one I haven’t heard about and, just maybe hit the jackpot.

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Such was the case with The Clockworks, and a few days after finding them on Spotify, I’d purchased their debut album Exit Strategy. 13 songs clocking in at just over 46 minutes it hits the mark lyrically and musically. In 1971 Rod Stewart recorded Every Picture Tells a Story It would appear that The Clockworks have possibly updated the intent with Exit Strategy the a tale of travel and change. From Galway to London. Growing up in Scotland, we’ve heard similar tales over the years too.

The first thing to do though is to try and get away from the thought you’re listening to Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand. Not a bad comparison as I’m a big fan of the Scottish band.

The album is produced by Bernard Butler, another collaborative venture which brings out the very best in the band’s musical journey from Galway. The storyline permeating the album tracks, centres around a move from Galway to London in search of ‘finding oneself’, and thinking, like so many others before them, that the solution lies in changing the environment they live in, blending in with a new crowd, and behaving as someone he is not. 

In the opening track Deaths and Entrances, I was immediately taken by the lines

I’m not shy I’m understated.
The Mona Lisa’s is overrated.
Stop trying to make me perfect
Cause being human’s complicated

At the expense of falling foul of the Cultural Police, I have to agree!

As most opening tracks should do, it sets the tone for the rest of the album. Other standout tracks include Enough Is Never Enough, Advertise Me and Lost In The Moment.

The Clockworks join an impressive list of current Irish bands making their mark on the music scene, including The Murder Capital and Fontaines D.C.

If their debut album is anything to go by then we’ll be hearing a lot more of them in the coming years and we’re looking forward to seeing them in Vienna tonight, 19 March at the appropriately named Chelsea club venue.

Playlist here of the album, with one of the top tracks on video at the start of the post.