You’ve probably already learned by now that ‘Bubblegum’ is Clinic’s most accessible record to date. But what’s accessible or approachable for some folks is still likely to leave large swathes of Generation X-Factor kitting their brows and reaching for the nearest Sony-ATV tonic at hand; afterall not even a whiff of Cheryl’s perfume is likely to be anymore heady than this, the Liverpool band’s sixth album. The aggressive nasal whine has undergone the gentlest of adenoid treatment and left Ade Blackburn purring into the microphone like a cross between Jarvis Cocker and Catherine Deneuve. In fact, the lounge has seldom looked this cosy. ‘Bubblegum’ coos and shuffles along its skewed, progressive chord changes in a manner more befitting Casino Royale and songs like ‘Baby’ just have to be more pleasurable than sex. We even get what must rank as Clinic’s first acoustic track, the plain, clover picking and unfathomably hummable, ‘Linda’. It’s still as mad as a box of frogs, but this time its follies are more accomplished.
It’s Clinic’s ‘Merriweather Post Pavilion’ moment, a rare combination of pretty sixties psycho-pop and uber-soft psychedelia.