If you were raised like me in the 80s/90s in the lost gone, bars of the underground scene of Athens where poets, madmen and rockers meet in old neo classical houses turned to bars to drink, read and think about lifes and youth s unsolved mysteries liasteini ng to Nick Cave, Luis Tillet, Iggy Pop, MISIFTS, ROLLING STONES, MONSTER MAGNET and Glen Danzig, CRAMPS, GUN CLUB, SCREAMING TREES, 13TH FLOOR ELEVATOR, THE CREEPS then CLINIC RODEO is your cup of tea. Mesmerizing, repeting garage roxk n roll riffs, not as loud and electrified as HELLACOPTERS closer to DEAD MOON and CRAMPS they deliver their Elvis influenced dark rock n roll in style in songs like “Surprises”,”9.1.1 top secret”, ‘Electric lights”, ‘Rats”. An unholy chant where Cris Isaak meets Nick Cave at “Lost hills roads” with Iggy Pop leading the dance. “Holy nights” is a dark anthem for Christmas, like Glen Danzig is fronting the CRAMPS, slow and heavy like the serpent coming of paradise to find its next victim among the mortals. “Girl big gun” has the alternative feeling of bands like “FURY IN THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE” a classic for the alternatve club dance floors. ”From love to die” is a dark, piano led elegy, a down spiral to the gutters of the human soul, sensitive, lyrical and soul sacrificing.
This Parisian duo (Ad on the strings, Joy Harvey on the drums) sticks together here. This time, their new discographic effort, recorded and mixed by them in their home, is haunted by nightmares and poetry. There transpires a dark romanticism, impression of the setting sun. CLINIC RODEO always distills a vision of an Americana that is even more authentic than fantasized. The garage rock has a new serious contentment for the crown in the face of CLINIC RODEO. ”By my flesh” is a massive strike to the listener, with its compelling riff, demanding his surrender, a bit like QOTSA on oxycodeine. The majestic elegy of “Lost Hills Road” resonated the darkness of the American nights over the desert with the refined backing vocals of Ad, creating a suffocating atmosphere where music elevates you before throw you out of the airplane door in the darkness of the night (without parashoot). “Fury” is their own version of the BEACH BOYS meet dark garage rock with great female vocals adding the much-needed salt to the deafening guitar sirens that devastated your mental stability. While “Skyless nights” is Iggy Pop’s, wet dream, a song he would kill to sing today.
CLINIC RODEO are a band that would be a big name in the underground days of the alternative rock of the early 90s. Their love for dark americana, garage rock and blues come as a breath of fresh air in our days of plastic, corporate rock. Their ability to combine mesmerizing melodies with captivating choruses and use every shade of the dark colors in their musical palette, brings tears in my eyes and will destroy the mascara for a lots of rockers who still lurking in the shadows of the underground bars, drinking to keep the sunlight away.
8/10
https://clinicrodeo.bandcamp.com/album/les-nuits-3
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