THE FRONT ROW

Originally from Galway, but now fighting out of London The Clockworks are James McGregor (vocals/guitar/keyboard), Sean Connelly (guitar), Damian Greaney (drums), and Tom Freeman (bass). They are currently just embarking on an extensive 45-date UK and European tour promoting their debut album Exit Strategy. I headed along to Liverpool Arts Club Loft to see what the UK and Europe can expect.

First artists of the evening were a band who’s name will no doubt cause some mild confusion on search engines when local residents are trying to find out what days their bins are collected. Borough Council are not an administrative organisation but a trio from Hastings.

They played a short, spikey set that travelled in time and space from gloomy, late-Seventies, Joy Division Manchester to frenetic, early-Nineties, Radiohead Oxford. Their brand of dark Alt-Rock perfectly complemented the glaring yet stark new lighting rig in operation in The Arts Club Loft.

For those of you not familiar with Irish slang, ‘Nixer’ is term for cash-in hand work done outside of normal working arrangements. Nixer is also the name of a decent Irish Electro-Punk trio. They consisted of a bass player/backing singer; computer jockey – responsible for beats, breaks, and all manner of samples; and fronted admirably by singer/guitarist Sean Keenan who prowled the stage, and roamed through the audience resplendent in a T-shirt bearing the logo ‘More Blacks, More Dogs, More Irish‘ – first made famous by his compatriot Phil Lynott.

Their lively set was a high-energy, lo-fi, fast B.P.M. rollercoaster ride, the highlight of which was Space – which saw Keenan sauntering amongst the crowd, thrusting his microphone into punter’s faces urging them shout the song’s title back at him.  

Bar one or two switches in the exact running order The Clockworks set was exactly as advertised as they played the entirety of their critically acclaimed debut album – Exit Strategy. With this album The Clockworks have pulled-off a pretty neat trick. The band came to prominence on the back of angry, edgy and twitchy, post-punk songs about missed flights and poor customer service lines, but songs like Stranded in Stansted and Can I Speak to a Manager didn’t make it on to the album. Part of the reason for this may be that those songs don’t fit easily into narrative of the album, where the protagonist, mirroring the band themselves, moves uncertainly from Galway (side one) to London (side two). Exit Strategy shows a band maturing and blossoming, not afraid to try something different. It’s almost like The Clockworks have ‘skipped’ a first album and just gone on to create a brilliant ‘difficult second album’ instead.

The Clockworks opened up with the first song from the album, Deaths and Entrances, which saw James McGregor sat at his keyboard accompanying himself, telling the tale of an atmospheric and melancholic Halloween night out in Galway. Hall of Fame was a slower, soulful story of self examination found wanting. Car Song started off with ‘lo-fi’ vocals and instruments before developing into a cacophony of crashing cymbals and thrashing guitars. The mesmerising Danny’s Working Like A Dog, a song about unfulfilled dreams of escape, began with McGregor singing along to a solo guitar, and slowly built up to an all-enveloping Phil Spector ‘Wall of Sound’ crescendo.

For long-time fans of the band, The Clockworks’ set still contained some of the pithy, malice laced, punchy post-punk songs critical of modern life that first grabbed their attention – Bills and Pills, Feels So Real – songs that added darkness to the new shade. These changes of pace and intensity brought a real sense of dynamism to The Clockworks set. Another tweak to the band’s live performance was the use of sampled dialogue between songs – including at one point a snatch of a Ray Liotta/Henry Hill monologue lifted from Goodfellas.

The set barrelled along at a reasonable pace to an appreciative crowd, as the album tracks ended with Lost in The Moment and the anthemic Westway. It was my third time seeing The Clockworks play at a Liverpool venue, pleasingly, each time to an ever increasing audience. They brought their show to a conclusion with another previous single that didn’t make the album cut – The Future is Not What It Was – and one that did, the vitriolic Enough Is Never Enough.

Where The Clockworks are concerned I think the title of that last one sums it up quite nicely. Come back soon.

Ian Dunphy.