Clinic are four-strong and from Liverpool. But they are no ordinary band. And despite the medicinal properties their name suggests, they don't heal. Quite the opposite.
For a start, they wear blood-splattered surgeon's outfits when they are called into public operations. And the only rock and roll traditions they hold close are the power of guttural, minimalist drones, the consuming legacy of The Velvet Underground and a ceaseless desire for dynamic sonic invention.
'Internal Wrangler' is Clinic's first album proper, following last year's abrasively brilliant EP compilation, and follows the already set remit of discordant, paranoid ideals, lyrical subterfuge and dirty, voodoo grooves. At 31 minutes, the record is a short and bitter mind-melter.
Single 'The Return of Evil Bill' has already attracted the band some interest beyond the steaming cess-pit they may have crawled from, and it's no surprise. The frantic scattershot rhythms and hounding melodica are ably accompanied by frontman Ade Blackburn's menacing recollections of this so-called reprobate 'Evil Bill'.
As good - if not better - in the demented stakes, is the decidedly unhinged 'The Second Line', which builds menacingly via Blackburn's unintelligible, incessant gibberish, 'Abbey Road' licks and a sand-blasting, howling noise-fest at the close.
When the band finally come-off their amphetamines, there is some tranquillity and stability to enjoy. 'Earth Angel' features crashing waves and a desensitized Blackburn with his head in the clouds. Even more precise is 'Distortions', with its brooding atmospherics, archaic, Neu-esqu spacerock and the pleading delivery of Blackburn, despite lines like 'I've pictured you in coffins.'
And while on tracks like '2nd Foot Stomp' and 'C.Q', it is obvious how much they've fawned drooling over the likes of The Velvet Underground and The Beach Boys, Clinic have created something abruptly deranged, unsettling and nasty, but affirming, from those sounds and beyond.
If your looking for a band that take their music seriously while laughing like madmen, stick your hand in this gutter.
