Clinic

The members of Liverpool's Clinic are up to their surgical masks in Nuggets-worthy psychedelic splendor here, from the bass-driven pulse of an opening track whose instrumental section could practically pass for The Yardbirds paying tribute to the Far East, to the dark narcotic haze that hovers over "Gideon." On "Animal/Human," they sound like they're covering some old Phil Spector girl-group classic fried on acid with an unexpected Shaftguitar break and Ade Blackburn slurring every word until you may think you're on acid too. "Paradise" crawls like The Drifters on cough syrup under the boardwalk, and they sign off with a haunting ballad. But the tracks that flat-out rock are often just as brilliant as (if not closer in spirit to) the Seeds side of the Nuggets tracks—from "Children of Kellogg" (whose loping bass is pretty much a mirror image of the first cut) and "If You Could Read Your Mind" to the thrashing garage-punk abandon of "Tusk" (a track you won't confuse with Fleetwood Mac's song). It may not finish on as many year-end lists as their earliest efforts, but you won't find many more inspired "artyfacts" from this, the modern psychedelic era. —Ed Masley