Heave Media

A Confident Return

Clinic Doesn’t Stray Far From Their Recipe, Nor From Quality

Clinic

Do it!

Released on Nov 30, -0001

After over a decade of full-length releases, the formula for their music seems to have just about engraved in stone. Ade Blackburn’s vocals rip through the fast tracks and digress to a delicate, still moderately ambiguous croon during the slower ones. The sonic feel of John Hartley’s guitars remains constant throughout their career as well. The marching pace of each track and the way that Carl Turney slams each rhythm home with every ounce of conviction he can muster can’t be anything but the base for a well-defined structure.

Their latest album, Do It!, doesn’t stray from these formulas very much other than a few new guitar effects and the obvious increase in production value. One would think that this can cause such a lasting band to become stale in the mouth of a listener, the Wonder Bread of UK Indie Rock.

But I’ve yet to meet anyone who truly wants Clinic to mess with the formula. Do It! features everything you’d come to expect from the band and ups the ante with a moderate “concept” feel to the complete product and a newfound feeling of professionalism that was lacking from previous releases.

“Corpus Christi” features an iconic Clinic sound, with Blackburn whispering lyrics into the microphone with a passion so close to religious that you’re ears feel as if they’ll experience the aural form of stigmata before the chorus can even hit the first time. Not my taste on this track, however, is Clinic’s seeming insistance to interrupt such a perfected vibe with a squealing guitar to break the song up that feels nothing short of cheapening to the rest of the song.

It’s possible they chose to make this moderately psycho-billy effect a staple of the album because of the standout track “Shopping Bag.” This track possesses some of the more experimental of Clinic’s work on the album. There are moments of the song that seem like they belong in a Rob Zombie film as perfectly as in your favorite punk rock bar. Blackburn has also taken a few cues from the popularity of vocals a la Jack White with a stuttering vibe interspersed with a falsetto indictment in the chorus.

There are a lot of different elements floating around on the album, but they all seem to mesh together in a perfectly “Clinic” song that remains exciting enough that I’d run and purchase the album based on the single track alone: “The Witch (Made to Measure).” There’s a steady build through the entire song with a 60’s-sounding guitar and keyboard part that highlights the steady indictment of the lyrics that I’d be just as happy tapping my toe to as setting the song on repeat in my headphones while walking through a foreign city.

All in all, this is a standard Clinic album. The final track, “Coda,” lends a (perhaps tardy) cinematic feel to the rest of the album, finally placing purpose on the themes explored. Buying this album, you’ll know what you’re getting into. But what you’re getting into is certainly a pleasure.

The album is supposedly a celebration of the 600th Anniversary of the Bristol Charter, a chance to existentially let go of the world and meet them upstairs with the witch. If that doesn’t make you want to check out what they’ve put on this disc, I don’t know what will.

Posted by Mark Steffen on Jun 02, 2008 @ 12:00 am

nor from quality