Listening to The Lateness of the Hour, I try to hear Alex Clare, but mostly end up seeing a hat. A fedora, to be specific. Always front and center in the mix, Clare's voice drips with the brassy confidence and implied stylistic reverence of post-Mark Ronson ladies' men like Bruno Mars, Wallpaper, and Mayer Hawthorne, artists who seem to exist solely to don fancy duds in men's magazines that congratulate them for doing absolutely nothing to upset the concept of how this stuff should sound and look-- soul music as a fashion accessory, mostly.
The difference with Clare is that the young Brit is being produced by Diplo and Switch and it all feels icky in a way any album does when it comes off like a record exec's version of Listerine, something that invents both the problem and the solution. This year, the likes of James Blake, Jamie Woon, Katy B, and to a certain extent SBTRKT have all made strides in satisfying those who'd prefer the fluidity and innovation of dubstep and UK bass music be delivered by knowable singer-songwriters. It was basically the same issue that people had when trying to monetize electronica over a decade ago, and Lateness offers up the same one-step fix: Keep it goin' louder.
But the idea that this is even a proper forum for discussing the purity of the form gets decimated in less than three-minutes with opener "Up All Night". Major Lazer too minimal and chaste for your blood? How do you feel about Arctic Monkeys guitar chug with dancehall beats and that almost-rap cadence from "Wannabe"? In its quest for confluence with lyrics that play out like a longform Bacardi ad, it's a tidy summary in how the hedonism of pop radio can feel so predatory these days. (Or you'll end up with a justified worry that Major Lazer's collaboration with No Doubt will end up sounding like Transistor-era 311.)
From there, Lateness never does much to prove Clare and his producers were on the same page (let alone reading from the same book). Clare's songs are perfectly innocuous and only occasionally irritating transmissions from the mindset of the modern pop&B male, oversinging underwritten come-ons to either the woman who got away ("Humming Bird"), the woman who won't get away if he's got anything to say about it ("Relax My Beloved"), or failing that, her fine-ass friend ("Treading Water"). The line, "I don't want to hurt you but I need to breathe/ At the end of all you're still my best friend," basically reveals the borders of his worldview.
Another problem is that Diplo and Switch are producing like they don't need Clare's voice and he's singing like he doesn't want their production. The high-NRG drums and sandworm synth lines hardly sound like necessary or even complementary additions to "Treading Water"-- an "unplugged" version is helpfully included on the Deluxe Edition if you doubt me. Likewise, the caricatured deep bass on "Relax My Beloved" and the gospel-via-T.D. Jakes gaudiness of "Sanctuary" are nice tricks that may make you wonder if Diplo and Switch will regret not saving them for someone who'd actually appreciate the details. As the second half drags on, Clare tries to muster some grit into terribly sappy love jams with self-explanatory titles like "Love You", "I Won't Let You Down", and "Where Is the Heart?" making you wonder if Lateness is essentially a Ray LaMontagne record with beats.
Then comes the cover of "When Doves Cry". He's almost certainly aware of the talking points-- not just the supposed audacity of trying one's hand at such an acknowledged and shopworn classic, but in how it fits on a record with such an exaggerated low end when Prince famously removed bass entirely. Like most of Lateness, though, it's more eye-rolling than pernicious. (You could argue "Tight Rope" is a worse crime for revealing Clare has clearly never heard of Janelle Monáe, taking the central metaphor from her song of the same name wholesale and nothing else worthwhile.)
Truth is, it's much easier getting mad at the marketing plan of Lateness of the Hour than the record itself: The total mismatch of artistic motivation makes everyone involved come off like innocent bystanders, not manipulators. Call it GQ funky, Purple Label Sound, How To Dress Well (For Real) or whatever... I mean, you play this thing on iTunes and Genius recommends a "similar" song called "Rocket To Uranus" by Vengaboyz and Perez Hilton. Well done, all involved.
