Back in the day, there was a girl a coupla years older than me in High School, really cute, really smart, really sharp tongued and intimidating and the older boys were like moths to a flame. She liked me -i looked like a little bouncing ball- and I cried the day she graduated. I never saw her again but Clinical Trials lead singer Somer Bingham is a dead ringer.
I can't remember when I was last so captivated by an onstage persona -she is funny, withering, ill tempered, sweetly nasty. When the other half of the duo, drummer Caryn Havlik, suggest Somer tells the audience who they are, she smirks, "They know who we are…" Long pause, then almost under her breath, "Animal Collective".
It is a winning act that interrupts the bands loud, noisy if not obstreperous, white noise jams: you could imagine it working as ambient noise and you can imagine Clinical Trials opening for Lou Reed And Metallica. There doesn't appear to be a melody in the entire half hour of searing, ear throttling chord progressions and noise licks, and harsh hard drumming.
The rapport between the two is nasty nice, like sisters or something and Somer's mood is kept in check as much as it could be. "Whoever tuned this did a lousy job" she claims as she tells Caryn to tell a story and then interrupts her. When the band gets back to business, the rock star in waiting moves about the stage banging riff upon riff till she is doubled up over the guitar and at the end she leaves the last chord ringing with an obviously honest "I like feedback".
The songs themselves merge into a wall of electric sound on stage, though their EP, released last August, Bleed Me, is very different. I bought it for ten bucks at the gig, but it is available on Spotify and ITunes and on their webpage. I was disappointed; if I'd heard it first I'd have liked it, but the six songs are a touch generic: they are gothic, dark. Their humor isn't remotely captured and while the songs have their moments, and lots of them, I could have used something a little more like their live set.
Having said that the opening song "Whip It" has a great screaming vocal and the third track "Sweet Machine" ("I wrote it to trip Caryn up" Somer claims), is great live and great on record. On record, the stop rhythm is sexy and brooding, on stage apocalyptic and blistering with power. I couldn't hear the song construction at all on stage and gave into the guitar textures and rhythmic flow and lack, but on the EP, it becomes clear the song is really, really good.
On their website clinicalkrialsmusic.com, they list their hobbies as misanthropy. Yup, misanthropy and feedback.
Grade: A-