The last album of London trio Clinker seems to be ambiguous at first sight. This work of Peter Jordan, Tomoko Matsumoto and Marcus Moir (he left Clinker after recording of this album but at the moment he is back again) can be viewed as their follow-up to When I Grow Up I Want to Be A Space CadetClinker confirms their strong musical ambitions for chart desire – the opening track Sunnyside Up and Runny is acid pop of something – more closely, it is something boisterous drifting between signal sounds and delicate chaos element. Am I Good (Am I Evil) could give a fillip to soft-indie fans, to keep up dancing and exalting life. It is the mixture of Keane and the tunes of the Charlatans throughout the second half of 1990s. Bulletproof seems to be felt into this era when Blur dumped their shoegaze ambitions off and began creating britpop with the goal to dislocate the mainstream music, on Foggy Albion at least. Demurely talking, the next track Say Goodbye may cause some embarrassment to people who like preferring the tougher stuff, yes, nevertheless, if you are able to push down your first impressions, you might think at the end, it was a very good ballad song by itself. Also, those late 4 minutes emphasize the breaking point on the album. However, all of what is following further is pure gold only. What You Done dig up the next but indirect connections with britpop. Peter Jordan`s arrogant song style, space rock tunes and intrusive dance rhythms draw similarities with Bon Chic Bon Genre (1999) by Campaq Velocet which has been one of the first post-britpop albums. This fact don`t make me surprised, because Peter Jordan started as the sole embodiment of Clinker at the end of 90s, and a lot of songs represented on the recent LP are actually the new versions of old tracks. (2007). The first part on Slimeball will show a new perspective of their skills – the reverbed vocal lines, powerful guitar riffs and modern electro synths will create totally psychedelic chaos. Overspill Equals Calamities is one of the highlights in the first place – the restrained start gets developed into autotuned vowels and cosmic turbulences of synths. This is an excellent example of uncompromising pop, a way to demonstrate to an intriguing pop scheme by setting things proportionally up and mix the harmony and experimentation with each other. High Times is a kosmische musik in pure sense of this word - if you like Ash Ra (Temple), Walter Wegmüller, Manuel Göttsching, Pyramid or Acid Mother Temple (or some of its recent incarnations), it certainly makes sense for you. Star Hardcore Lady makes a little change in direction by going to map the psychedelic noisy pop areas. If I couldn`t know that the track Create The Sun Is Out Today was released at the end of last year, I might be supposing it is a style example of the folk underground scene of 1960s (a mechanical rhythm structure may uncover a kind of recentness on carefully listening!). This excellent album will be finished by What You Done (Reflection) – the another and more powerful version of the same titled track mentioned above.
Regardless of fact that in my review has been a lot of references toward different eras, and hereinbefores has been named a lot of influences as well, as final result the album is very uniquely sounding output. As has been said by one member of the Scottish indie-punkers The Girobabies, `Clinker by Clinker was the best unsigned album of last year (2008).`
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9.5
