Clinic - Wheeltappers and Shunters review | Alexis Petridis's album of the week

The Guardian 80

(Domino)
With their short but immersive songs, the Liverpool psych-rockers underline their status as one of the UK’s most enthralling bands

In 2019, what are the chances of not one, but two new records, released in the same week, referencing mid-1970s variety series The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club? The show was one of those dimly remembered phenomena you could pull out in order to underline that the Britain of 45 years ago was barely recognisable as the country we currently live in: an authentically grim-looking evocation of a northern working men’s club, where Dusty Springfield and Roy Orbison performed alongside the Krankies, “Two-Ton” Tessie O’Shea – a lady whose act involved strumming a paper bag as if it were a banjo and singing Nice One Cyril – or the Amazing Bavarian Stompers, an oompah band whose performance on the show was enlivened by the baleful figure of compere Bernard Manning holding up a sign that read Free Rudolf Hess.

And yet, nearly half a century on, we find ourselves in an unexpected situation. Days after Noel Gallagher released a video for his new single cut with footage from the show to suggest his band is performing in the titular social club, Liverpool quartet Clinic release an album named after it, on which the first sound you hear is a fuzzy recording of its co-host Colin Crompton.