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Clinic: Clinic "Free Not Free" (Track Review)

11:41 a.m. · February 6, 2008 · by Jeff Klingman

Were it not for the occasional moments of intervening electric death like the one that starts the new Clinic single, "Free Nor Free," the song would be one of the masked band's sweetest, most sedate ballads. Still a Grade A mush-mouth, Ade Blackburn's singing is actively melodic if not particularly well-enunciated. The rest of the band is calm too; casually palming a bongo, or chiming in with a lackadaisical "oooooh" when the moment strikes them. But that rogue guitar keeps coming back, an angry bee in a picnic bonnet. Sonically, it seems slightly muddled and incoherent, but thematically I think it works. It suggests that, even in those hazy golden moments, you're just one storm cloud away from disaster. Whether it comes from the sky above or the doubts within, the effects are similarly disruptive.

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