Clinic - Funf Album Review

Clinic
Funf
Album Review

Clinic are one of those bands who, for whatever reason, failed to live up to their early promise. Clinic's debut, Internal Wrangler won masses of critical acclaim for its brilliantly scattershot focus and diverse points of reference. Unfortunately, their follow-up attempts could not replicate this success, and they've been on the long plateau of ordinariness ever since.

So, in typical Clinic style, Funf is an intensely fragmented collection of b-sides that is every bit as disparate as their regular albums. Of course, with the varying quality of their output of late, it is also rather inconsistent.

'Christmas' is worthy of inclusion, a smooth and measured track that is a world away from the ill-advised, slap-dash punk of 'Nicht'. Elsewhere, 'The Castle' is a tense, keyboard-led joy, which makes the scratchy, experimentalism of 'Dissolution.' sound even more undercooked.

These kinds of contrasts sum up the whole record really, a kind of unsatisfactory compromise, not compelling enough to win new fans, and not comprehensive enough to please the die-hards.

Ben Davy