Exit Strategy. The Clockworks

Three new alternative rock bands get a lot of positive attention recently and in three days we will present them all. Today it is The Clockworks. Exit Strategy is the band's debut album and it rings like a bell at Christmas time.

The Clockworks is a band from Ireland, Galway, but moved to London to pursue its career. Whether that has made a difference can never be ascertained. Fact is, that with Exit Strategy the band has provided itself with one. From a life of 9 to 5 jobs that is. The band fits in nicely with what came before and adds its own young-guys-going-for-it energy to the alternative rock cum newest wave music it presents. James McGregor, Sean Connelly, Damian Greaney and Tom Freeman moved to London in 2019 to make a career. The pandemic must have held things up in a desperate way, is my guess. Instead of playing and showcasing, nothing happened for some time at least. The foursome persevered though and is rewarded with an energetic album.

To me The Clockworks is a totally new name. You cannot come across them on this blog. There must have been singles before, I suppose, if there were I have missed them all. What you do not know, you cannot miss, not even in hindsight. Exit Strategy comes through loud and clear though and from a complete fresh and clean position without any expectations.

Photo: Jill Furmanovsky

Let me get back to the word energetic. There are many bands that qualified for that word in the past 20 odd years. Many have been long forgotten. The Clockworks add a component to the energy, cleverness. This sounds negative but not here. This band seems to be able to add an extra element to their songs. A near perfect balance between the rock, the alternative and pop. The songs nearly all have that alternative edge, while singing along is almost never an issue. The power of the songs is in the rock element. James McGregor's voice has that little edge to it and gets away with a slower song as well, not unlike Alex Turner's. I will not compare The Clockworks to Arctic Monkeys though, the new nor old version. There are hints at best. 'Hall Of Fame' turns out very nice after the four energetic songs opening Exit Strategy. Not only the song balances the album, it is a banger in its sort.

Where comparisons are concerned, I'm thinking of bands like The Automatic, The Maccabees and The Rifles. Although the band makes a different sort of pop-rock, Django Django comes to mind for another reason. Both bands do not need a gimmick to score. There's no predicting the future but The Clockworks ought to have one based on the quality of Exit Strategy, just like Django Django has.

The fact that the band was able to land Bernard Butler, once of Suede fame, as producer, attests to the potential. It results in a clear sound, open and with ringing tones, outshining the darker parts that often come with the newest new wave influenced bands. More importantly, the songs nearly all totally convince and that's enough for a debut album. The Clockworks is a band to watch.

Wout de Natris