Artist: Alex Clare Album: The Lateness Of The Hour Rating: 3 out of 10

Alex Clare is a musician based in London; he recently released his debut album ‘Lateness Of The Hour’. The record is a bag full of surprises, containing soulful voice comparable to the likes of John Legend and James Morrison, he also presents some pretty deep lyrics that will touch the listeners. However all this is shrouded with generic dubstep beats, which have become all too common to today’s music listeners. Now this isn’t to say that there is something wrong with dubstep as a genre, but this kind of feels like an attempt to grab extra fans, which is a shame as this album had some real potential.

Whilst there is clearly very brave experimental thought that has gone into creating this and that can be appreciated, it is far too drastic sounding and comes across rather sloppy. Music wise listeners can expect to hear a similar, but slightly more mature Magnetic Man feel; which incorporates that crossover between talented singing and dubstep.

However there are still a few positives about the album. The vocal ability of Alex Clare is not to be missed, he has an extraordinary range.  There are a few tracks which the mix beats and vocals work very well, such as ‘Too Close‘  and ‘Treading Water ‘ these are the few tracks on the album which really flow, perhaps because the general mood of the songs are dark and the bass goes well with that. The main drawback of the record itself is the song ‘When Doves Cry’, this classic originally by Prince is a hard one to cover and while Alex Clare does have the ability to do the song justice, and that can be heard in his voice,  it is ruined by the backwash of the music going along with it.

There have definitely been worse things released this year, it is just sad that a guy with such potential couldn’t reach his top level. It is yet another example of raw talent that succumb to the music industry’s idea of ‘good music’ in search of stardom.

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