A month after he was dropped, he was contacted for permission to use a song from the album, "Too Close", in an advertising campaign for Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9.

The advertising campaign propelled the song up the chart, and soon after, Universal Republic Records signed Clare to a distribution deal that allowed The Lateness of the Hour to be rush-released in America on iTunes on 24 March 2012.

[2] After Alex Clare signed with Island Records, he teamed up with Diplo and Switch (Major Lazer) in 2010 to collaborate on his debut album.

[1][2] Clare wrote the album, and had a handful of songs including "Too Close" already in demo form before hitting the studio.

"[8] In addition, Drowned in Sound gave it a mixed impression review with a four-out-of-a-possible-ten, when Robert Leedham stated "Alex Clare is a fairly gifted gentleman.

"[9] To this, Uncut gave the album a two-out-of-a-possible-five-stars, and they noted "Much of it is a coffee-table approximation of the producer duo's more irreverent work.

"[11] The lone highly negative review came in from Pitchfork, who gave the album a 3.7-out-of-a-possible-ten points, and Ian Cohen wrote that "...Lateness never does much to prove Clare and his producers were on the same page (let alone reading from the same book)...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.

[13] After the launch of the advert for Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 where the song "Too Close" was used, it sold 10 times better than they imagined it to sell.