Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

August has almost once more disappeared round the darkened corner and the obscurity that sometimes threatens to come with the September evenings as minds somehow turn towards the winter festivities three months too early, is racing with the speed of a timepiece set far too fast to cope with the chimes playing in the background. Yet through Time’s optical focus, a gig audience is able to see how the future might play out in years to come.

For Clockwork Eyes, the future was played out with wonderful angst and ferocity, the building up of a pressure valve ready to explode and the lingering look of an audience understanding that all things begin somewhere, for some it is starts with a kick that resonates across the stage and the gravity of that is too come.

Armed with a set list of possibility, Clockwork Eyes immediately set about getting under the skin and accounting for every note that was played and whilst the set was good it also had something that didn’t quite sit and stir the feelings.

The only problem with playing a cover, especially when newly immersing yourself into the world of music, is that sometimes the voice you hear in your head, the person who either created the song in the first place or the person who made the track so very special along the way, is that at times it does not work for you. Your own voice is lost in a haze of expressions that don’t fit your demeanour and unless you change that song, to give it a new lease of life in the same way for example that Blancmange did with The Day Before You Came or The Stranglers managed with the beautiful Walk On By, then an audience can be left slightly perplexed at the choice. The flip side is also true and for Clockwork Eyes the yin and the yang were in evidence in a set that otherwise was enjoyable and oozed so much future potential.

The delicate nature of Carly Simon’s Nobody Does It Better is a song that is one of the very few that when covered by a male band or performer seems to not quite fit the bill, it loses translation and the vibe to which a female voice brings. To attempt to cover it is admirable but it doesn’t give itself the room to breathe and in the same set but one that really resonated with the heart was the bands version of the excellent Creep by Radiohead which took on a slightly more disturbing nature and to one which fitted beautifully in this very cool young band who can certainly make some noise further along the road if they keep on gelling as a four piece.

Clockwork Eyes may be new on the treadmill but there is old satisfaction that comes the sound they create, a building of distinction to which must be allowed to run free and in songs such as the musically appetising Popcorn, Hand Full of Hammers, the excellent opener of Arrows and Guns and Sunset Melody there is more than enough to suggest that the band have something special building up inside them.

This was a fine performance by Clockwork Eyes at Zanzibar, rugged, intense, forthcoming, a band to keep an eye out for.

Ian D. Hall