clinic - do it

With their fifth album, Do It, Clinic return to their Internal Wrangler roots, revisiting the experimental psych-rock that made them famous. Do It offers a strange counterpoint to their breakthrough LP, both more traditional and more unexpected. Most of the songs ascribe to straightforward psych rock aesthetics, and when more adventurous choices are made, they manifest in strange places, like rock and roll ballads and folk-pop tracks. At times the unconventional strategy injects depth into otherwise insipid tracks--opener “Memories” is an example—,and in other instances it gives songs a choppy, uneasy feel when simplicity would have been more appropriate—and compelling. Clinic has a knack for old-fashioned rock, but it's their more experimental ideas that keep me coming back. The album’s lo-fi production provides an excellent backdrop for jangly garage numbers like “The Witch” and “Shopping Bag,” which along with "Coda," provide some much needed fervor to an otherwise lukewarm delivery.

“Memories” starts off the album with fuzzed out guitar riffs and glockenspiel, which soon gives way to an organ-based folk-pop verse. Each bridge revisits the opening riff in different variations, jazzing up an otherwise boring song. The song successfully meshes its disparate pieces, but feels a bit sluggish for an album opener. “Tomorrow,” makes this aesthetic a bit more interesting, its loose strung guitar clanking along muffled, nasal vocals. Ringing rhythm guitar chords and mystical horns give the song a psychedelic feel. Single “The Witch” expertly posits catchy psych-rock, it’s shuffling drums, steady, throbbing bass lines, and jangling guitar issuing the perfect mix of danceable rhythms and eccentricity. “Shopping Bag” is the album’s best song, injecting a manic intensity and vitality into its aesthetic. It opens with a squall of screeching woodwinds and metallic guitar, and a brilliant cacophony closes each of its taut, pulsating guitar verses. “Corpus Christi” and “High Coin” have interesting meandering verses with flourishes of sitar-like guitar, but never really go anywhere. Sadly, the album saves its most experimental work for its ending, a song with an adventurous spirit so rich it could surely have livened up the rest of the album. “Coda” opens with a waltzing staccato organ while strange harp flourishes and whirring sounds circle in and out. A jagged guitar solo impales the middle of song, with a haze of distorted church bells bringing "Coda's" strange chaos to a close.

Despite a few adventurous moments, Do It ultimately feels like a diluted version of Internal Wrangler, aesthetically compelling but lacking the vitality and dynamism of the band's best work.