About Clinic
Hometown
Liverpool, England
Formed
1997
Genre
Alternative
Clinic have managed to keep their music (and themselves) shrouded in mystery for decades—and the surgical masks they’ve long donned onstage is just the tip of it. With a loose foundation in vintage garage rock and punk, the Liverpool band has continued to lean into their most experimental tendencies. Vocalist Ade Blackburn and guitarist Jonathan Hartley first started playing together as kids back in 1984, but it wasn't until 1997 that they formally launched Clinic. The band hit its groove by the turn of the century, starting with 2000’s Internal Wrangler, a moody, beguiling debut rooted in eerie post-punk and thrashy rock that hints at the band’s enduring restlessness. On future albums, they refined (and redefined) their ominous, psych-soaked aesthetic, slipping into icy, organ-fueled paranoia on 2002’s Walking With Thee, throwing around smooth pop curveballs on 2010’s Bubblegum, and dancing on the fringes of soul, folk, Krautrock, and electronic when least expected. After a seven-year break, Clinic returned with 2019’s Wheeltappers and Shunters, a heady melting pot of psych, pop, and dub, followed by 2021’s disco-funk foray Fantasy Island—both as dark and decadent as ever.
Members of Clinic include, or have included, Ade Blackburn and Hartley.
