Clinic – Visitations

There isn’t a single band around at the moment thatresemble Clinic, and the Liverpool band’s fourth albumfinds them reaching the same high sonic standards.

Their unusual, widescreen sound can sound likethrash guitar being played in an enormous garage, akind of crossbreed of grunge and Phil Spectorperhaps. But it would be doing the group a disserviceto suggest their sound has been too derived.

Sure, there are elements of other styles – a StoneRoses groove here and there, or the spaced outLust For Life-type bass riff that provides the basefor Harvest (Within You). But even here, the far-offorgan and disembodied backing vocals lend an entirelynew slant.

Tracks like Animal/Human find them completely ontheir own. Here a brief meditation takes place over adroned bass, its solemn stillness strangely uplifting.Likewise Children Of Kellogg, which has to be heard tobe believed – a bizarre episode in the fairgroundacting as an upbeat for a bluesy thrash-out thatchanges direction at the drop of a hat, and ends withsomebody sawing wood. Now that would make you choke onyour cornflakes!

When not attending to intricate combinations oftexture the quartet rock for their lives. Anexhilarating rush of distortion takes over Gideon,while Tusk careers into the mosh pit at breakneckspeed, burning itself out. The one real respite comesin the centre of the record, as Paradise takes amildly reverential tone with singer AdeBlackburn repeating the hookline “the love youneed to give.”

Repeated listening only serves to enhance the wholeexperience, bringing fresh marvels at the textures.The combinations shouldn’t work but they do, the blendof sounds from close by and far off giving the perfectaccompaniment to Blackburn’s heavily treatedvocal.

The whole thing’s over in just over half an hour,but provides ample food for thought. What’s more, Iguarantee when you’ve listened to it once you’ll behappy for a repeat experience almost immediately.

In a scene saturated with predictable guitar bandsClinic are a refreshing alternative, pleasinglyunhinged and resolutely refusing to conform to type.More power to their elbows.