Clocks - 'Old Valve Radio'
Sometimes, I know, it must seem from reading my reviews that I hate indie music. Maybe that I hate all music. Just to clarify: I far from hate music, even and especially indie music. I love music lots and lots, I buy hundreds of CDs across the full genre-spectrum, I constantly seek out new and exciting things to listen to, I dance around my room singing to things at the top of my voice, do a bit of amateur DJ-ing and sometimes just sit and stare in silent contemplation at how AMAZING some music really can be. However, it just so happens that the rash of horrible, hideous faux-indie wet-nosed scamps dressed up as bands is continuing, unimpeached and so sometimes, music needs a bit of tough-love and the occasional "I'm not angry, I'm just very, very disappointed" piece of sentimentalism.
The low ambient noise at the start of the video for this song made me think for a very glorious moment that it was about to turn into some kind of brains-in-the-air gregorian postrock. I will admit that it's possible this temporary delusion may have soured my reaction to the rest of the song even further than it would have been already but the difference is probably negligable. Think how amazing it would be if it had turned out to be gregorian postrock, though? That would have earned it five stars just for the genre name.
As it is, of course, instead of bells we get THE CHORDS. THE HIDEOUS CHORDS. These chords stalk the aural nightmares of probably quite a few reviewers; they are the chords that say "Hello! We're chipper but gritty and we do earthy lyrical poetry from underneath our EFFING PORK PIE HATS." They are those chords that say "we were inspired to start a band by the Libertines". They also say things like "we think this is REAL music because we can't really play our instruments very well and we've had TWO BEERS before coming on stage", and "we get our influences from the NME book of cool".
They make me want to reach into my computer, find the little boy who's playing them and break his tiny guitar into a million pieces because if I hear these chords many more times, in that exact same "GOSH LOOK AT US, WE'RE DOING INDIE" rhythm I am going to have to smack someone. I would say Pete Doherty but that would be a bit like kicking a small child, while it is down.
As per usual with these bands, the whole song is lifted out of Ye Olde Britpope Songbooke. It's amateur, it's drippy, the music reminds me of a vastly diluted , which is saying something and generally it is AWFUL. Irredeemably, indescribably awful. It doesn't go anywhere, the choruses have all the finesse of 'Vindaloo' and the sheer JOYLESSNESS of the entire endeavour is enough to make you completely depressed.
This song has the added downfall of the only memorable lyric being "you're so perfect, you're so perfect, you're so perfect" repeatedly, which induces similar feelings of rage in me to the "she's so lovely" line in that song by Scouting For Girls (I forget the title).
The rest of the lyrics make, to me, little-to-no sense and appear to be largely a set of random observations thrown together; lyrical I Spy, if you like, which might be alright if the song had a) a tune, b) some display of musical dexterity or songwriting ability and c) didn't make The View look good. A vote for this is not a vote for music. It might be fine if your mate's band sang it a couple of times but it's completely undeserving of a release or purchase.
Download: Out now
CD Released: April 14th
(Hazel Robinson)
Comments
That's a hilarious review, Hazel! It almost makes it worth the song existing!
I liked the bit at the beginning of the video, where he got on the bike, only to cycle round pointlessly to where he started from...