Clinic - Wheeltappers And Shunters (CD)

After an unprecedented seven year break, Clinic - Liverpool's cherished post-punk pop experimentalists - return with album number eight. The unusual name is taken from the long-forgotten 1970s ITV variety show The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club, compered by Bernard Manning, which recreated the smoky, boozy atmosphere of Northern working men's clubs for a sofa-bound audience. This album is neither a celebration nor a denigration of the culture of the era in which Adrian Blackburn and his collaborator-in-chief, Jonathan Hartley, grew up.