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Like the Ramones and the Jesus and Mary Chain, Liverpool's Clinic work from a narrow stylistic palette, and all three bands have a similar affinity for burying catchy early-'60s-style melodies within radically unfamiliar settings. Like 2001's Grammy-nominated Walking with Thee, Winchester Cathedral is full of terse songs built on a reedy clarinet or melodica, a muscular guitar sound with roots in '60s surf and garage band nuggets, and minimalist percussion (sometimes little more than a tambourine or a high-hat). It's a dense but rigorously circumscribed sound, and Ade Blackburn's sinister, cryptic vocals operate more as texture than as decipherable texts, even on the woozy ballad "Falstaff," which sways like the Shangri-las on acid (it's a highlight). Fans will find slight new twists on the Clinic sound -- the chimes in "Country Mile," the slide guitar in "Vertical Take Off In Egypt" -- and newcomers, those unfamiliar with Clinic's surgical maskwearing stage costuming, will find Winchester Cathedral a perfect introduction with its balance of screeching rave-ups like "WDYYB" and "Circle of Fifths" with placid pauses like "Anne" and "Home." Steve Klinge, Barnes & Noble