Clinic

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When Clinic debuted in 1997 with the single "IPC Sub-Editors Dictate Our Youth," the group sounded like some weird, snarling art-punk group who only ever listened to the Fall, dub and the last few minutes of the Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray." The band's rhythmic post-punk was completely out of line with the rest of the musical landscape and it seemed like they were destined to become one of the first few great, original groups of the new millennium. The fact that they all wore surgical masks only made them seem even more bonkers. Their 2001 release, Internal Wrangler, with its Ornette Coleman-cribbed cover, helped remove any doubts about the band, whose rather askew music came out like subterranean, damaged punk with the occasional melodica solo followed by blasts of guitar -- but never so much as to get in the way of a good pop song. Both 2002's Walking With Thee and 2004's Winchester Cathedral contain plenty of the jagged spark that made their early records so vital.