“Tripping over bottle tops, skip round syringes/ Trollies in the river and gates off their hinges … It feels so real to me.” Everything Post-Punk plus the kitchen sink, Galway’s The Clockworks deliver power-packed two and three-minute pop vignettes packed with lyrics about everyday dramas and everyday people, “my mate”, your mate, you, me and the guy who’s always down the bookies. Loquacious frontman James McGregor delivers every word in a way that strongly suggests he means it, and the best thing about every word is that we can hear it – there’s a clarity to the sound as vital as the truth to the tales.
Opening track Endgame echoes a Samuel Beckett title, is more pool than chess and something of a mission statement: “We’re post punk/ Post truth/ Post Europe/ Post Youth/ Post modern/ Post faith and God/ And post post too …”
Money (I Don’t Wanna Hear It) is the five-day grind and dreams of a holiday, the Capitalist trap, the betting trap, the devil-on-your-shoulder-and-absent-angels trap. On Feels So Real (“The city’s a lady, the city’s a tramp …”) we’re out and about with nightclub queues, advertising cues, sirens and those aforementioned syringes, then a face briefly lit up that reminds us yes, there is hope! Closing track The Temper (“A fury that he couldn’t temper/ A temper he couldn’t tame …”) ends with just voice and guitar, which just feels right.
The Clockworks are McGregor (vocals/guitar), Sean Connelly (guitar), Damian Greaney (drums) and Tom Freeman (bass). The band have already been compared to everyone from The Fall and The Jam to fellow Irish outfits My Bloody Valentine and Fontaines DC, and they sound to me like The Futureheads. Dunno if that helps, but the stories are their own. Maybe it’s time you listened to The Clockworks.
The Clockworks’ four-track, self-titled EP is out on Friday (April 1) via Alan McGee’s It’s Creation Baby