Clinic
Internal Wrangler

THE REVIEW

Internal Wrangler is an album by Clinic, dated 2000, containing 14 songs (including one of 4 seconds where you hear nothing), it is an excellent album. The songs inside are "in Pixies format", meaning they somewhat resemble Surfer Rosa in song length, small and well-equipped with music, indeed the album lasts only 31 minutes but... they are 31 fairy-tale minutes!

The introduction of the album is entrusted to Woodoo Wop, a start of tribal percussion with a thousand insects in the background, that harmonica present in almost all songs, it seems like a musical delirium recorded in the middle of the jungle but after a minute everything settles and the sea waves arrive along with a rhythm that is nothing short of sunny yet chilling.
The second song is The Return Of Evil Bill (which might remind, in its title and a bit in the music, of the least significant episode of a Beatles song on the White Album) which represents a frantic ballad. The song that gives the album its title could serve as a soundtrack to a horror movie if it weren't so rock... the harmonica, the organ, and the Thom Yorke-like lamenting voice in this song seem to create a single instrument. The Second Line...in the frantic singing and in the use of a drum machine they seem like Radiohead out of Kid A (released the same year).

The album also contains singular episodes that recall the best Velvet Underground, such episodes are the interlude C.Q, second foot stomp & 2/4. The first sounds like a cover of a 30s piece played by Lou Reed & co.; the second gives you the impression of a Venus In Furs sung by a Reed as we hear him in Sister Ray...stuttering and nervous, 2/4 seems like a small piece of that recently mentioned Sister Ray. Goodnight Georgie is the Goodnight by the Beatles played in 2000 (still noting the resemblance with that White Album).

In short, this Internal Wrangler is recommended for those who love: Radiohead, Velvet Underground, Pixies, and Beatles - oh yes! All very different groups from each other. Indeed, these Clinic never bore!