Clinic

Released two years since the somewhat lackluster Winchester Cathedral, the Liverpool quartet's fourth LP returns to the sharp material of earlier EPs. With all the abrasive edges -- buzz saw keyboard patches, distorted bass lines and percussive guitars -- the record alternates between pounding post-pop and Ade Blackburn's delicate, understated vocal lines. The formula is certainly nothing groundbreaking for Clinic, but if the haunted echo of "Animal Human" or the tribal pulse of "Harvest" bring to mind the group's inscrutable genius of old, there's certainly nothing wrong with that either.