Music, Record Reviews

New Record: Clinic, Do It!

Posted by: Johnny Loftus on April 15, 2008 at 1:00 pm

clinicdoitb.jpg
Clinic, Do It! (Domino, 2008)

Listen: “Memories”
[audio:http://www.detour-mag.com/audio/Memories.mp3]

Well, they’re still wearing masks. But at least Clinic’s music has remained as mysterious as their faces. On Do It!, their fifth album, the Liverpool band remains stridently out of line with their contemporaries, letting gloom, witch hunts, unlikely instrumentation (or at least using instruments in an unlikely way), and an intent to make the lyrics as cryptic as their chins all slip into place once again. The sloshing, jostling, Anthony Burgess’s music hall opener “Memories” screams to be used in a burlesque show; the dancers would have to wear masks, though. Elsewhere “Shopping Bag” blasts with tinny electric guitars screeching off the deep end as Ade Blackburn adopts a vocal style that’s as haughty as much of Clinic’s material can be, but still manages to be anxious and punk-derived. The melodica surfaces on the mellower “Mary and Eddie,” which also rhymes “quaker” with “trousers,” while lead single “Free Not Free” lurches into an out of a Radiohead nightmare. And when you have Radiohead nightmares that Radiohead doesn’t even know about, you know you’re doing something right. — Thomas Rooker White

[tags]Clinic, Do It!, Domino, Anthony Burgess, Ade Blackburn, Free Not Free, Radiohead[/tags]

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