Clinic, Visitations
For their latest outing, Clinic promise us “surreal ballads next to subhuman riffs,” and dutifully cram as many of both as possible into this thirty-three minute waif of an album, without ever seriously threatening to reconcile the two. Instead, the songs seem to tolerate rather than exploit any such tensions, and this goes some way to explaining the mystery of how a record that so obviously yearns to burst with ideas can sound and feel so very thin.
Part of the problem lies in Ade Blackburn’s vocal affectations, which occasionally near the territory of the pub mimic. His dodgy impressions range from a younger, more lucid Mark E. Smith, who presides over some four-square pub thrash to no effect on ‘Tusk’, to a rasping Thom Yorke on ‘Paradise’.
The latter counts as one of the few successes here: lilting whimsy which, ably assisted by a well-placed melodica solo (never a bad idea), becomes more than the sum of its parts. The closing title track also has much to recommend it, not least that it could be incidental music from a Bond film. But the song’s refrain lays bare the real issue here: “just don’t get close,” Blackburn cautions. Anyone choosing to ignore him will see that there’s not much holding these songs together.
Out 16/10/06
