The Surgery Is Open For The Weirdly Wonderful
Fancy sauntering into the world of the weird and wonderful? Feel like listening to an indie band that do more than ape Franz Ferdinand or whose only aspirations are to be the new Libertines? Then step into Clinic's world, a place where experimental music is not something to be frowned upon but instead a way of life. Formed nine years ago in Liverpool, this quartet are unbelievably on their fourth album and showing no signs of fatigue just yet and although they may have packed away the surgical masks they used to don for performances, one thing is clear; bands simply don't stray into Clinic's musical territory anymore.
Supposedly this is the Clinic's "party record", if so then this is like no party you've been to before, in fact it's probably inhabitated by the type of people your mother warned you about and told you to stay away from. Without a glow stick in sight and not a hint of a fluorescent light, 'Visitations' leads you into a dark den of intrigue and peculiarity supported by a wave of 60s psychedelica and awash with hypnotic grooves that vault from garage punk to guitar laced surges of mellowness with lead singer Ade Blackburn's inscrutable and almost unhinged vocals being the only constant. Welcoming you with a flash of a guitar and a pulsing drum beat, opening track 'Family' gets the party in full flow with a stomping tune wrapped around Blackburn's sneering vocals that escape through clenched teeth. And from herein there is no way back as Clinic engulf you in a layer of gritty blues guitar riffs, contemptuously moody vocals and intimidating drum beats as we venture into the dark menace of 'Gideon's chugging grooves, along to the shambolically intense garage punk of the highly charged 'Tusk' before hitting head first into the undistinguishable vocals that accompany the rhythmic rawness of 'If You Could Read Your Mind', and let's not forget the fanfare that greets you on 'Children Of Kellogg' before you are bowled over by crunching guitars that march along with the snarling vocals and tribal like drum beats. As far as parties go, 'Visitations' introduces you to a world of debauchery that provides a vibrantly eclectic slice of experimentation before delving into 60s psychelica and offering a dash of old school 70s rock splashed with gritty blues riffs strapped to an indie mentality that swaggers around moodily with an endearing serving of arrogance.
Lyrically, half of 'Visitations' will fly straight over your head as Blackburn's disdainful vocals only allow a select choice of words to be comprehensible but surprisingly this adds to the charm of the album. By no means easy listening, Clinic have produced a collection of songs that need to be listened to intently to be fully appreciated for what they are, after which they become as catchy as the latest hit streaming through the radio with the added bonus that each of the Liverpudlians' offerings come equipped with their own dose of moody, raw rock goodness. It may be almost ten years, but it's never too late to dapple in the strangely weird world of the Clinic.