Clinic – Free Reign

Clinic – Free Reign (Domino) 

Though special enough for people in high places to set them up on blind dates with the mainstream (e.g. Letterman, the Grammys), this underrated Liverpool band has ultimately proved too weird to get invited up for coffee. Perhaps it’s the surgical masks they insist on wearing during performances? No matter – it’s better not to give it up on the first performance anyway, and it wouldn’t even be possible for a band with so many tricks up their sleeves. Their seventh full length finds them incorporating krautrocky rhythms, free jazz freak-outs, and druggy dub vibes to their malleable, mutated take on post-punk, somehow still sounding like no one else without repeating themselves. And that’s the kind of band you wanna take home to meet the parents.

by Carly Blair