I’ve been a huge fan of Clock Opera since the first time I heard one of their songs (was it Belongings or Once and For All, I don’t remember). Slowly over the last two years they’ve been releasing single songs off what was to become their debut record, Ways to Forget. If I had to say something bad about the record, this is the only thing worth complaining about – if you’ve been following the band, you’ve heard quite a few of the best songs.

However, there isn’t a bad song on the album and there are a ton of new jams that will make you have to grab your friends for mutual appreciation (the ending for Fail Better is amazzzzing). And if you have never heard of Clock Opera before, godmanit, go buy this album right now, you won’t regret it.

In fact, I have been assuming for quite some time that when these guys finally released an album it would be making a big pull for the #1 spot on the end of the year list, and this album was exactly the album I was hoping for.

I do have to rant a bit about International music distribution though. Ya see, the guys in Clock Opera are from London and I’m stuck here in beautiful Los Angeles. Clock Opera gives you a ton of ways to buy the new album, except of course if you are American.

I’m a savvy Internet guy and we get a lot of freebies here at Audio Muffin, so I’m not often one to buy music unless it truly moves me. And I was fully prepared to pay top dollar for this album, but after trying every option on their website, I was continually told “No Yanks Allowed”. Even on iTunes I could browse the UK store, see the album, try to buy, and be swept away to the US store where the album wasn’t available. What is the difference iTunes? You are a multi-national company, why can’t I be multi-national too? I think the execs need to take a quick trip to Disneyland to re-learn the lessons of It’s a Small World.

So for us in the States, find the album however you can (the deluxe version is available very easily if you know what I mean). I’ll buy it when they release it here, but I can’t wait. And once you have fully digested the album, don’t forget Clock Opera makes remixes on the same caliber as RAC or any other top remixer these days. You can find their remixes along with remixes of their own songs on their Soundcloud page.

They are currently only touring in Europe (big surprise). But you bet your sweet ass I’ll be buying up a block of tickets once they come stateside.