Clinic - Internal Wrangler

From a seedy underworld of gothic malevolence and bad voodoo comes this, Clinic's long-awaited debut album. On Internal Wrangler, these four serious young conceptual post-punkers pull on their emergency-room overalls and go about dissecting the dark underbelly of rock history with a scalpel, sewing it back together in unique malformations. There's knowing references to the smack-addled chug of Velvet Underground's "White Light / White Heat", the acerbic eclecticism of the Beatles' White Album and even a dark, serious nod to Johnny Cash's "Ring Of Fire" on the creaking workout of "TK". But really, Internal Wrangler sounds like nothing else past or present--a 30-minute death-rattle of caustic, shrieking garage-punk, interspersed with murky funeral interludes and malevolent post-folk nursery rhymes--even a song called "Hippy Death Suite". Surely, this is a band to kill for. --Louis Pattison