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Review Summary: Just Like Clockwork’s debut has several gaping holes in it, but overall it showcases the band’s talent and potential for growth. Just Like Clockwork is a young and very obscure band, hailing from Adelaide, Australia. Their Facebook page currently has, at the time this is being written, a mere 823 “likes”. By no measure is this band well known among the post-hardcore community, being drowned out by fellow Aussie rockers Closure in Moscow and Hands Like Houses. Their unfortunate obscurity aside, they are a classic example of a young band that has the guts and potential to make it big, as demonstrated by “Make and Believe” (which the band is kindly giving out for free on Bandcamp, check it out).
While not without its shortcomings, “Make and Believe” is a hopeful slab of energetic post-hardcore with a tasteful alternative rock flavoring. The instrumentals are the strongest aspect of the album. Guitarists Ryan and Chambo play a variety of interesting riffs; they work well together to create a majority of the album’s memorable moments. Drummer Duffy plays solid fills and provides a dependable rhythm section; I will say, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, that the bassist doesn’t usually play a huge role in the sound of post-hardcore bands, but bassist JT provides several interesting moments throughout the album. Overall, the instrumental performance is superb. The intro in the song “Huge Hefner” is infectiously catchy, as is the reverb-saturated section towards the end of “These Lies”.
Vocal duties are taken on by Timmy, here the band starts to go stale. His voice is reminiscent of a higher-pitched Trenton Woodley, but unlike in Hands Like Houses, vocals on “Make and Believe” are perhaps the weakest aspect of the album. Vocal songwriting is extremely inconsistent, and Timmy makes some questionable choices; sometimes he hits unnaturally high notes (such as in “Huge Hefner” and “Action Jackson”) and ends up sounding extremely awkward. In general, many songs are littered with stale choruses that sadly resign them to filler status.
The song “These Lies” exemplifies the plight of the band. The first twenty seconds are gorgeous and captivating. The entire band synchronizes as bands should and pump out the most memorable moment on the album. Unfortunately, the song then degenerates from there into a poorly written chorus, which then dominates throughout the rest of the song.
But Just Like Clockwork is a young band, as I have said, and they have the chance to improve their act substantially, as evident by what they have managed to accomplish thus far. If they dust up the vocal work and beef up the production, and write more songs along the lines of the first twenty seconds of “These Lies”, then they could breathe new life into the decomposing post-hardcore scene. They have the capability and they have the musicianship. They just need more time to mature.
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MISTAKEN SUBMISSION
don't comment/pos/neg this, review is gonna probably be deleted
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In the meanwhile I won't submit the legit review in order to avoid pushing another one off the frontpage
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"Just Like Clockwork’s debut has several gaping holes in it, but overall it showcases the band’s talent and potential for growth"
azninva5in's 5th review also has several gaping holes in it, but showcases talent and potential for growth.
Neg.
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"don't comment/pos/neg this, review is gonna probably be deleted"
skele you just can't help yourself can you?
this review is well-written i'll pos once you re-post it.
“Make and Believe” is a hopeful slab of energetic post-hardcore with a tasteful alternative rock flavoring
good writing.
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Thanks Atari
Skele you're really damn annoying and I hope you get banned soon
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looks like this won't be reposted I guess lol
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oh lol well in that case pos'd.
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Is this actually a good review though? or are you just saying that to spite skele :D
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it's actually a good review aren't you happy with it?
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I'm actually not
I thought it was choppy and I had trouble fleshing it out
I find it hard to balance talking about the positives and the negatives, and I'm unsure about the finished product
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well don't forget you can edit the reviews as many times as you'd like if you want to change something...but honestly i thought it read just fine especially for it only being your 5th review.
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Sweet, thanks man
But do you see any flaws with the review?
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i'll be busy for a while but i'll read through it again later tonight and give you feedback if you want. (but i'm no expert i'm still learning too!)
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aight thanks man
my goal is to become so great at writing that even skele wouldn't neg my reviews
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Hi, there. I see you would like some feedback. If you would like to read along, I have some suggestions.
Couple things feel a bit on the unnecessary side here:
"Their Facebook page currently has, at the time this is being written, a mere 823 likes" -I just don't think this needs to be said. You are touching on the obscurity enough and you don't need to bring Facebook in this to prove your point. I trust you, lol.
"...as demonstrated by “Make and Believe” (which the band is kindly giving out for free on Bandcamp, check it out)." -The bandcamp part would be something to say in your first comment along with a link, not in the actual review itself.
"The instrumentals are the strongest aspect of the album. Guitarists Ryan and Chambo play a variety of interesting riffs; they work well together to create a majority of the album’s memorable moments."
You could combine these to help with the flow of the review.
- Guitarists Ryan and Chambo play a variety of interesting riffs while working well together to create a majority of the album’s memorable moments along with Drummer Duffy, who plays solid fills and provides a dependable rhythm section.
..and then give the part about the bassist its own sentence instead of using a semi colon (which I don't think was used correctly, but I am no expert with semi colins):
- Unlike the norm in post hardcore, bassist JT provides several interesting moments throughout the album, rounding out the overall superb instrumental performance. -
The 2nd paragraph just has a few weird moments that could be changed to make it flow better. I may have more...
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"The first twenty seconds are gorgeous and captivating. The entire band synchronizes as bands should and pump out the most memorable moment on the album."
This could also be combined:
- "The first twenty seconds are gorgeous, captivating and have the entire band synchronizing as a band should to pump out the most memorable moment on the album."
And change this...
"If they dust up the vocal work and beef up the production, and write more songs along the lines"
...to this...
- If they dust up the vocal work, beef up the production and write more songs along the lines... - ..since you are starting a list of more than 2 things they should do to improve upon.
"first twenty seconds of “These Lies”, then they could breathe"
'Then' feels kind of unnecessary. I think it would be fine to just have 'they' after the comma, but it would probably work either way.
I dunno... It's your review, you decide what you want to do with it, but these are the things that jumped out to me. Hope they are helpful.
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oh yeah i was gonna give u some feedback but i think ecnal has it covered lol
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Sorry, I was bored.
Did I take your thunder, Atari?
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lmao nah man it's not like i anxiously await the times I give feedback in reviews. Who knows if my suggestions are even that helpful i'm no expert i'm still learning myself. but reading through other users revews looking for mistakes or suggestions helps me grow as a writer i think
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Yeah, probably.
You could give me feedback on my feedback, lol. There is always the possibility my suggestions are terrible ideas.
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