This band caused a schism in my musical tastes about ten years ago, I discovered them and for a while everything changed. Despite getting into them after they'd ceased to exist is immaterial because Cardiacs will always be Tim and Jim Smith, but mainly Tim, because he was the musical genius pulling the band's strings. Not only was he good at his own music, he was also a natural arranger and that's what made Cardiacs unique. This is a new album that contains both Tim and Jim Smith, but I don't necessarily think this would have sounded the way it does had Tim been in a position to have been able to complete it. His own cardiac problems put paid to that scenario, so what we have is maybe 50% of an album that is Tim Smith and might not have had much changed from when it was recorded. We also get what feels to me another 50% of this album that feels, in itself, like two things - the need to sound as Tim like as possible and to do something that would have made him happy.
The schism I mentioned in the opening paragraph was the day I listened to Dirty Boy from the Sing To God album, which came out in 1996. The thing is Cardiacs had managed extremely successfully to stay off my radar from the late 1970s all the way until around 2012 (if my Facebook memories are anything to go by) when a friend posted a link with just the word 'this' written on it. It was the aforementioned Dirty Boy and I listened to it and it grabbed me. It was a remarkable thing because based on one song I became a disciple - a pondy - and I went out of my way to get everything they'd ever done...
But here's the thing; while I still believe that Sing to God is the greatest album ever made (not the best, or my favourite, or anything subjective, just the greatest album ever made) and I also like playing a lot of the stuff from 1988 thru to 1999, I don't play it very often. The rest of the stuff, old and live I don't ever listen to any more and many of the side projects, solo stuff and experimental music Tim was putting out between 1990 and 2008 varies in quality. Occasionally I'll listen to Tim's solo (and often not remembering much about it and realising how generally meh it was). Despite feeling like I'm a huge Tim Smith fan, I'm very selective with my Tim Smith tracks. There are maybe four albums and then an album's worth of tracks that I'm a huge fan of, the rest... meh not so much. A hugely inventive musician and songwriter, but he often wrote songs I wasn't keen on. I kind of think if he was alive and well today he would be making music I'd want to listen to though.
Which brings us to LSD which finally has arrived 16 years after it should have. I actually gave it a couple of days before listening, which maybe says more about my general personal realisation that Cardiacs possibly aren't musical deities and I've been hoovered up by the romance and tragedy as much the music. The thing is I think that proved to be a benefit because this morning when I realised it was there, I put it on and my expectations had levelled off. What I was treated to was what I said way up at the beginning of this - 50% Tim Smith and 50% homage, copy or imitation of Tim Smith. I felt that maybe 10 of the tracks sounded like the band I love and those tracks are quite divine, in varying degrees. Some of it borrowed a little too much from previous albums, which instead of continuity felt like patches or homage themed fixes to a production problem. Then there's the three, maybe four, tracks that sound like someone else singing a Cardiacs song and it doesn't matter what it sounds like, if it hasn't got Tim Smith's voice it ain't Cardiacs. Except... Volob changed my mind on that by how brilliant it is.
There is a pause in the album after the aforementioned Volob, but that doesn't pause on the overall quality. The trouble with the tracks that didn't feel right to me was that they were still good songs - the album is really stuffed full of excellence, which given its length further makes me think this could have been lighter, maybe left something to go on the album of rarities that will eventually be produced with members of New Cardiacs! I'm not convinced Tim would have allowed the extremely full and deep sound much of the production has especially with the progtastic Busty Beez, which wouldn't have been out of place on a Genesis album - it's a great track though. I think it would have been edgier or spikier had it been produced by Tim circa 2008, but it works and doesn't take away from the actual tracks, including three we've known for 17 years, which feel warm and welcoming; bundles of happy anger or angry happiness. I feel as though this doesn't deserve a 9 but equally is never a 7, which suggests an 8 is the perfect score, but one moment that feels both too little and too much. If this is all Tim, even if it's played by someone else, then it is an absolute banging way as a note to end on.
It's a good album hindered by this nagging feeling that with the exception of a few tracks it probably shouldn't exist at all. I don't know why that bothers me, but it does. Finality, I suppose. It has a way of reacting in the least expected way.
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