Clinic

If there's one thing you can say about Clinic, it is that they are consistent. Normally, that's a very good thing. The more you make consistent, solid records, the more likely you are to sustain your fan base and your career. Yet for Clinic, it might be having the opposite effect. They've always been too arty for the mainstream, yet too mainstream (or perhaps still too esoteric for Joe Q. Hipster) to be adored by the underground, who champion such avant acts as Liars and Man Man.

Do It! is their fifth record since their debut back in 2000; then they felt fresh and new, a creepy alternative to the "rock revolution" acts of that year. Now we've come to expect a few things from Clinic based on their track record, and Do It! performs. Ade Blackburn's nasaly, near-whiney voice is still nasaly, still whiney, and comes off just as angsty as it was on 2006's Visitations. The essence of Clinic can be found in the third track, "Witch Hunt." It bounces along angular-ish guitar chords, like Clinic songs do, as Blackburn reveals details about some some unfortunate character's ongoing bought with paranoia. Again, there's nothing wrong with this per se—they're definitely honing in on a style that's comfortable. Moments out of that comfort zone pop up sporadically; "Free Not Free" is an almost ballad, gliding along over wah-wah sounding guitars, and "Corpus Cristi" has some interesting whispery vocals, giving it a slightly haunting feel that wanders just outside of their songwriting boundaries, making ti all the more interesting.

Clearly, Clinic are adept as song writers, cranking out their idiosyncratic albums with ease. But really, in this day and age of art-rock bands a-plenty, you'll have to do something more. To its audience, Do It suggests it might be time for a change, and, for Clinic, that things around them have already changed—maybe they should dig up that Aphex Twin catalog, for inspiration.

—Michael D. Ayers
04.09.08

Clinic chug along like a coal-burning engine churning out thick black smoke on Do It!, working further into their cryptically dour art-punk/psych/soul/folk niche. Granted, that's a pretty specific niche, but as on their previous album, Visitations, it feels more like a groove than a rut. More than most bands, Clinic write songs in styles, and Do It! features most of their quintessential types: the excellent "Corpus Christi" is a menacing, whispery slow-burner like Walking with Thee's "Come into Our Room" before it, with a singsong lilt that makes it all the creepier; "Emotions" is one of Clinic's soulful ballads, this time boasting a thick fuzz bassline that runs through the song like a scratch; and "Shopping Bag" is this album's version of the band's noise-punk outbursts, now with a shrieking saxophone solo. While Do It! doesn't abandon Clinic's well-defined sound and approach, it does underscore how they innovate within their self-imposed limitations, even if they don't make radical changes. Almost suffocating distortion is one of Do It!'s main motifs, along with songs that swing from mood to mood rapidly. "Memories" uses both, shifting from heavy, ugly, deeply acidic psych-garage riffs to melancholy organs and autoharps as Ade Blackburn intones "Memories are all you own" (though it sounds more like he's singing "Memories are all you're on," comparing thoughts to drugs à la the Electric Prunes' "I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night"). "Free Not Free" is nearly as trippy, jumping between brash riffs and mellow flutes while setting lyrics like "when the hoax is in the mirror" to one of the album's prettiest melodies. All of this is to say that despite Do It!'s direct name, Clinic are as elliptical as ever. They're rarely better than when they're telling someone off, even if they do it so cryptically that the feeling is the only thing that translates. "High Coin" sounds like the perfect soundtrack to skewering a voodoo doll, its sinister organ drones giving words such as "You stitch who you always wanted/Now your thoughts begin to fray" an extra malice. Visitations' elaborately dark atmosphere gets more focus on Do It!, with "Tomorrow"'s creaky, cranky acoustics and "Mary and Eddie"'s electronically enhanced steamboat shanty providing some of the spookiest, and best, moments. It all culminates on "Coda," where Blackburn explains that the album is a celebration of "the 600th anniversary of the Bristol Charter" and urges listeners to "let go of the rail" (probably not a good idea) as several chapels' worth of church bells ring out. Do It! finds Clinic getting curiouser and curiouser, but that's the direction that suits them best. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide