{"id":78089,"date":"2019-04-17T15:00:46","date_gmt":"2019-04-17T14:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/?p=78089"},"modified":"2023-04-07T14:23:21","modified_gmt":"2023-04-07T13:23:21","slug":"review-clay-lake-the-manly-toughness-trophy-ep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/review-clay-lake-the-manly-toughness-trophy-ep\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Clay Lake \u2013 The Manly Toughness Trophy EP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-78090 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/56866297_1489067237894207_4940233669198479360_o-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/56866297_1489067237894207_4940233669198479360_o-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/56866297_1489067237894207_4940233669198479360_o-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/56866297_1489067237894207_4940233669198479360_o-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/56866297_1489067237894207_4940233669198479360_o-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/56866297_1489067237894207_4940233669198479360_o-30x30.jpg 30w, https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/56866297_1489067237894207_4940233669198479360_o-465x465.jpg 465w, https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/56866297_1489067237894207_4940233669198479360_o-500x500.jpg 500w, https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/56866297_1489067237894207_4940233669198479360_o-600x600.jpg 600w, https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/56866297_1489067237894207_4940233669198479360_o-100x100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/56866297_1489067237894207_4940233669198479360_o.jpg 1875w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Fearlessness might be no sure-fire measure of a band&#8217;s potential, but there is a point about halfway through <strong>Clay Lake<\/strong>&#8216;s debut EP where one does sit up and take notice. Devoting a track to a poem recital sounds bold \u2013 bordering on bonkers \u2013 for an otherwise straightforward, fledgeling emo-punk act, but it tells you everything you need to know about this Stoke trio&#8217;s first proper release.<\/p>\n<p>Tom Flemming, Elliot Sheerin and Alex Bettany picked up the pieces of various Midlands bands in 2016, and now <em>&#8216;The Manly Toughness Trophy&#8217;<\/em> follows last year&#8217;s single\u00a0<em>&#8216;Stitches&#8217;<\/em>. If that title alone teases out even the faintest of smiles, it&#8217;s fairly safe to say the entire EP&#8217;s aesthetic will find you well. <strong>Clay Lake\u00a0<\/strong>combine sharp, clean guitars with ambitious twiddling a la American Football. Similarly, there&#8217;s a mix of standard melodies and yells with surprisingly affecting spoken moments, as mentioned above for the entirety of <em>&#8216;Air and Light and Time and Space, a Poem by Charles Bukowski.&#8217;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not unoriginal or pretentious in any way and is handled strikingly well, no more out of place than a sample in an Eminem track. More conventional but no less effective is <em>&#8216;Eyesore&#8217;<\/em>&#8216;s dynamic ebb and flow, graduating from truly raw shouts to aching strains of brass.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"EYESORE - CLAY LAKE [OFFICIAL VIDEO]\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-mlGUkSkO_k?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1&#038;origin=https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Complex structures abound but are amply navigated and led by drummer Flemming, most impressively on <em>&#8216;I Quit My Day-job Behind My P.C., Time For Fun and Beer.&#8217;\u00a0<\/em>Yet for all the creative expansion, things come to rest with the aptly-titled\u00a0<em>&#8216;Relapse&#8217;<\/em>, driven by a simple, swelling riff that guides the EP to a satisfying close.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Clay Lake<\/strong> make a statement on <em>&#8216;<\/em><em>The Manly Toughness Trophy&#8217;<\/em>, which succeeds in being ambitious and very enjoyable from start to finish. Expect these guys to have a record label the next time they put out music.<\/p>\n<p>4\/5<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8216;The Manly Toughness Trophy<\/em>&#8216; by\u00a0<strong>Clay Lake<\/strong> is out on 19th April.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Clay Lake\u00a0<\/strong>links: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/claylakeband\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/claylake.bandcamp.com\/releases\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bandcamp<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/claylakeband\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Instagram<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Words by Peter Stewart (<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/PeteStew_\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@PeteStew_<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Clay Lake make a statement on &#8216;The Manly Toughness Trophy&#8217;\u2026 ambitious and very enjoyable&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":78090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,2269],"tags":[16833,15783,15030,16834],"class_list":["post-78089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-album-reviews","category-ep-review","tag-clay-lake","tag-ep-reviews","tag-peter-stewart","tag-the-manly-toughness-trophy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - 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