Where's Claire is the best australian guitars and drums driven band, with Jerry Speiser drumming styles ,this group is a band to reckon with,, earthy soundtracks filled with meaning. I like the following songs like maybe, does everybody knows, how many times, mr green,verse chorus, 15 plus,calling ...tracks that were finely polished, finely crafted .surely a block buster/chart buster album that you will enjoy listening from start to finish..
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A couple of years ago, my mother was cleaning out the closets at her house, which resulted in a UPS shipment of my artifacts being dropped at my doorstep.  Among the treasures: several cassette tapes of me singing with my college band, the "cleverly" named Three Dicks and a Jane.  I squeamishly played the tapes (which were recorded from the one amp we played into), wondered why on earth we would ever do a cover of "Ferry Cross The Mersey," and nearly burst my buttons with pride at our cover of "White Rabbit."  (I lived to emulate Grace Slick back then, her vocals, her use of mind-bending psychedelics, even down to her Pucci minidresses and Jean Shrimpton eye makeup.) At any rate, those tapes are a somewhat tuneful snapshot of a college band Making Music Just For The Hell Of It, circa 1990.

Where's Claire has managed to accomplish a similar feat, with much more listenable results, with their release of Long Time Coming.  It must have been a lovely shock to the other three when they received the tapes from the bandmate Ben.  What's especially engaging is that they had the resources and the wherewithal and the commitment to take their recordings and actually do something with them. 

This is a good record.  It isn't going to set the world on fire, nor is it going to usurp the top of the charts from 50 Cent any time soon.  (Jerry Speiser already knows how it feels to sit atop the charts.)  I get the feeling that is never what this record was about.  It seems to be friends who happened to be very talented getting together to make music for the sake of making music.  Because they can.  Because it's fun.  Because, after all, they are darned talented...they might as well do something.  (And hey...while we're having fun, let's record ourselves too!)

Music for the sake of making music: quality music, at that.  My favorite track on the record is "Something Serious."  Other standouts include "Maybe" and "Men Among Men" (I'm in a heavy Stan Getz phase right now, so I love the bossa nova in that song.).  I also must mention the silliest song on the record, the irrepressible, irresistible "15+," whose chorus manages to get stuck in my brain with every listen.

I recommend this album without reservations.  It's a great testament to musicianship, I think (something that, given the state of what passes for "music" today, is more and more essential).  Music because you can, because you should, because you must.  Because it's fun.  Where's Claire is the grown-up, expert version of bands like Three Dicks and a Jane.  They originally got together to play for reasons like the rest of us did.  However, they took the dream a step further. And that's pretty cool.
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