Walking with Thee

Artist: Clinic
Label: Domino
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 801390000522
EAN: 0801390000522
ASIN: B00005YX3X

Release Date: 2002-03-05

Walking with Thee

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General

| Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

Hardcore & Punk

Indie Rock

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Tracks:

Harmony
The Equaliser
Welcome
Walking With Thee
Pet Eunuch
Mr. Moonlight
Come Into Our Room
The Vulture
The Bridge
Sunlight Bathes Our Home
For The Wars

Similar Items:

Internal Wrangler
Winchester Cathedral
Clinic - 3 EPs
Visitations
Friend and Foe

Amazon.com

Fans of the Clinic's uniquely eerie take on '60s and '70s U.S. garage rock will be pleased by their second long player, Walking with Thee, which contains the same amount of malevolence lurking within. It also sounds quite marvelous. On their debut album, Internal Wrangler, this British four-piece displayed a ferocious, focused melding of garage, art rock, Krautrock, surf, and any other left-field genre you'd care to mention. Clinic will no doubt tire of the continual Velvet Underground comparisons, but while they have mined rock's cooler record collections, they've nevertheless created disorientating and utterly compelling music. From the bass-driven chug of "Welcome" (a heady collision of the Ronettes and '60s sci-fi soundtrack music) to the sweat-drenched derangement of "Pet Eunoch," Clinic are clearly in thrall to mid-'70s New York, but among the detached, icy vocals and Suicide-like minimalism, the album contains electronic undercurrents and off-kilter pop moments that are the band's own. The pervasive mood is of unease and disquiet; on the unsettling closer, "For the Wars," Ade Blackburn sings, "Now it's safe and warm." And, of course, it's anything but. --Suzannah Brown

Album Description

The second album by Liverpool's favorite sons. Co-produced with Ben Hillier (Blur, Elbow). Clinic have found fanatical new followers all over the world in the last year since the release of their debut album, Internal Wrangler, and Radiohead's invitation to accompany them on the Kid A tour. The band also played to packed houses in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York on their initial headlining tour of the States in September and October 2001. Domino.

Customer Reviews:

Original Sounding and Quite Beautiful.......2005-09-29

On the cover of this album there is an arty little painting of a keyboard and if you look at the back of it in a certain way you might get the impression of a grand piano. So it's no secret that the keyboard is going to be featured prominently, and it is, it is. But there is so much other great stuff on this album that after a while you can't help but wonder whether the whole keyboard motif was meant to be ironic. There are a lot of different instruments on this album and all of them fit in beautifully.

The guitar work--rhythm and melody and mostly plucked--is particularly lovely. There are no solos or thrash strumming; instead it weaves in and out very subtly in the background, always remaining fresh and sometimes driving the piece. The same can be said of the rhythm section. Again, it doesn't call a whole lot of attention to itself, but if you care to pay attention to it, you'll note it is carefully done and more than a little complex. Of course, it is the keyboard which is dominant here, and it is superb, covering at least a few different styles, from the harsh organ evident in the sixties rock piece, "Walking With Thee;" to the rhythm it provides in, "Harmony," and, "Come Into Our Room;" and to the gentle melodies and intensity it provides in, well, just about everything else. Perhaps what is most surprising about this album is the use of wind instruments. Mostly it is the harp hauntingly floating around, but there is flute also, and is that a clarinet on, "Sunlight Bathes Our Home?" Whatever, these are what make the album unique and what truly define this band's sound; a sound, it must be added, which is utterly distinct. There is really nobody else that sounds like this.

The songs are wonderfully crafted, tiny little works of art, with a beginning, a middle, a growing intensity, and an emotionally satisfying ending. "Vulture," is a fine example of this, with the carefully controlled harp at the beginning veering dangerously out of control as the song progresses--over the intensifying rhythm section--before crashing to an abrupt, stunning ending. But this is typical: all of the songs feature varying degrees of beauty, intensity and drama, and, except for, "Pet Eunuch"--a jarring, out-of-place, unoriginal punk piece--everything here is worth repeated listens. Indeed, it is two years now since it has been released, and it is still regularly demanding of a spot on the CD changer.

It must be admitted that the singer is a little bit hard to understand. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though. What's important is that his is a vocal that is able to convey a sense of barely restrained emotion, which is exactly what this kind of music calls for.

pretty good but...........2005-05-14

I like the whiny sound, so this is great and dark and wonderful....but is it just me or are "harmony" and "come into our room" almost the exact same song? They are both great songs--but the SAME great song.

Fill yourself with dreams.......2004-11-29

Clinic's "Walking With Thee" is that pretty, intimidating kid down the street -- entrancing, yet somehow dangerous to touch. It sounds pretty, until the creepier notes kick in. While they have a few classic rock bands fueling their sound, the eerie electronic pop sound is entirely their own.

It opens with the darkly naive note of "Harmony," a sweet pop tune that is grounded by the occasional deep piano notes. But things take a different note with the rattly "Equaliser" and bassy, plodding "Welcome." A classic rock sound kicks in with "Pet Eunuch," which could've been a lost song from the 1960s.

But that is followed by the wavery keyboard of "Mr. Moonlight," a song that wouldn't seem out of place in a secluded corner of Radiohead's albums. That trend is continued by the blippy, dreamy "Come Into Our Room" and jazzy "Vulture," broken only by the lo-fi rock of "The Bridge." Think of it as Radiohead exorcising their inner Lou Reed.

Clinic seems to have taken every musical influence they enjoyed, thrown them together in a pot, and the result is "Walking With Thee." You can hear hints of Velvet Underground, Joy Division, maybe a dash of Modest Mouse, and some Radiohead -- and that's only a few. Surprising, the songs mesh very well together.

The heart of the album seems to be punk riffs and chilly electronica. It starts off and ends on eerie, cold notes, more computerized than outright musical. That could have had them labelled a Radiohead wannabe. But they kick in almost instantly with the solid rock: The grubbier organic music is mostly guitar and some plodding bass, with hammering percussion taking center stage in the title song.

The vocals are high and thin. Not in a bad way, just merely a bit wispy; they stick to an ominous monotone throughout much of the album, only breaking into some drowned-out yelps in "Pet Eunuch." He's a lot better when he's being miserable: "And I believed in solitude/I believed too little was few/Free for all your happiness/and no ones living on their wits."

Clinic's second album is a bit like an snow-covered beach -- it's gritty and chilly, but still very beautiful. "Walking With Thee" is certainly worth walking with.

Slight Sophmore Slump But Still Good........2004-08-03

Here we have yet another album which deserves that ever so important three and half rating. Compared to any other Clinic release, it pales in comparison but, when compared to alot of new "indie" music, it is a gem. The quartet is clearly looking for a way to expand their sound but not willing to give up the advances made earlier. So while not as incendiary as Internal Wrangler (THE place to start), it is not an embarassment to what Clinic has built. This is where you go after you have digested everything else. It is solid and makes one very curious about what the forthcoming Winchester Cathedral will be like. I can see the introspective moments growing but as long as they do them so well and include a few barnburners (or pub burners if you insist), I will continue to follow this intriguing rock unit.

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