Tom Hughes 

Clinic: Free Reign – review

The seventh album from Liverpudlian psych-rockers Clinic treads a line between musical stricture and freedom, writes Tom Hughes
  
  


The swirling, Bridget Rileyish op art on the cover of Clinic's seventh album depicts a disorienting tunnel of interlocking circles and squares, and there's something of that to its sound, too, as woozy clouds of guitar and analogue synth noise bloom and coil above stark, taut, monochromatic rhythm lines. It's hardly an unprecedented set of sounds, but these long-established Liverpool psych-rockers manage to shake them up into some interesting new(ish) configurations. See-Saw is terrific, throwing a weirdly stiff, honking sax line in with its hypnotic, garagey riff; there's one song called Boney M, but gladly it sounds more like vintage Kraftwerk; and Cosmic Radiation is an oddly tense, scared-straight kind of jazz. There are lulls elsewhere, but the highlights are a treat.

 

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