Sing To God

Thanks for adding a Cardiacs album to this list, contributor! One of the most neglected bands of all time. I like “A Little Man… Window” and “On Land And In The Sea” more; this is a great album though. The music is very eclectic and overcomplicated, but full of ideas, beautiful melodies, humor and funny lyrics.

One of the most important skills a band/artist can have is a keen sense of editing, a sense that is sorely lacking on this LP. I'm not opposed to the maximalist instrumentation and kind of dug the industrial, squealing guitar, but the histrionic vocals and repetitive songwriting meant this thing was doomed from the start with a nearly 90-minute runtime. It's exhausting to take in tracks this loud and relentless over that span, and even though the album seemed to hit its stride in the back half I was too exhausted and checked out by then to care.

Hey Tim. Hey Jim. I've got an idea for our next record. Oh yeah? What's that then? Let's take every idea we've ever had and play them all at the same time. Won't that just sound like a big mess? Well, yes. But it would be *supposed* to sound like a big mess. We'll have achieved our artistic intent. People would have to respect it. Are you sure, Jim? Yes, Tim. Also, it should be a double album. But won't that mean that the good bits get lost in a sea of random dross and massively irritate anyone who listens to it? Artistic intent, Tim. Artistic intent. Fine. Whatever. Rating: 1 Playlist track: Fiery Gun Hand Date listened: 22/12/24

An album where I often was thinking: "Wtf is this?! I love it" Not the most easily digestible music, but always surprising

This is my suggestion! It was either this or "The Glow, Pt. 2" by The Microphones, but I think we have enough Indie Folk on the list already, so an insane curveball like this was the winner. One of my all time favorites, from one of the most creative, yet also most neglected bands of all time. A mindblowingly dense, extremely fun album. Carefully constructed madness. There's more ideas in a single song on here than some bands' entire careers. The greatest guitar solo of all time on "Fiery Gun Hand", the way Tim Smith holds the final note on "Dirty Boy" for 2 whole minutes, the deep-fried Britpop that is "Manhoo", the mosquito riff on "Nurses Whispering Verses". So much shit to love. Just an insanely deep rabbit hole. Also immensely influential: Mike Patton, Napalm Death, Blur, Radiohead, TOOL, Steven Wilson, just to name a few, all cite these guys as one of their influences. Cheers to everybody who gave this a fair shot despite the fact that it's 90 minutes of not the most accessible music (to say the least). Personally, every time I listen to this, I find it to be the shortest 90 minutes of my life. I don't think I'd cut a single song from the tracklist. 10/10. RIP Tim Smith.

Always fun to see something described as polarizing in the pre-listen research and wonder which side I'll fall on. Pretty skeptical early on but it brought me around fairly quickly, and grew on me. Wielding metal tropes with real ability, plus some of the nightmare darkscape vibes of The Residents, and a gamut of broad influences. It grew on me too although in the last say fifth it was wearing on me too at significant length. Requires active listening. But thumbs up overall.

I can't in good faith give this 1 star even though I want to. There's too much creativity on display, as well as a clear sense of authorship. I have no doubt that this is exactly what these artists wanted to produce and put out into the world. I have to applaud that. I just hated basically every minute of it.

I was just listening to this the day before! I’m glad someone else picked this album so I don’t seem like a snob who doesn’t give anyone else’s albums a 5. I’m also glad that I’m not the only one with the audacity to pick such an inaccessible first listen. This album is an uphill battle, but once you climb that hill… there’s no view quite like it. R.I.P. Tim Smith, and thank you for letting us gaze into your world

Okay, this was some wacky stuff. I would not have pegged this as coming out anywhere near 1996, so I guess kudos on these guys for being different. Has tinges of Krautrock and Zappa's weirder stuff. At its worst it's assertively annoying, lyrically inane, and way too long. I can hear there's some musical skill in there, but Cardiacs seem more focused on being off the wall than on being coherent or listenable. Mentally tapped out several songs before it was all over. Fave Songs: Odd Even, Flap Off You Beak, Fiery Gun Hand, Wireless

Rating: 7/10 Best songs: Eat it up worms hero, Fiery gun hand, Angleworm angel, Nurses whispering verses

Good god, this was an experience and a half. Eclectic nightmare fuel, like The Residents meets Devin Townsend, with some incredible harmonies and wild instrumentation choices. Each song was quite exciting and it was impossible to tell where it was going to go next, but the double album format worked against it to an extent - as that unpredictability ironically just got a bit repetitive after a while, and each song melded into one. Still, very inventive and fun on the whole, and would have been a highlight if just a bit more selective with its tracklist

Vox gave it a 0/10 on initial release. If you do too, then you're a coward! Along the same lines as Primus and Mr. Bungle, Cardiacs take a fairly silly approach to rock music in a way that defies conventions in a way that can be slightly off-putting if you're not open to the idea. This album, however, is executed to such a degree that it ascends above every criticism you could meaningfully lob at it. Cracked album. Set your mind free and this is just a fun album top to bottom. No limits. CONTENDER FOR THE LIST: Hard to pin down the legacy of an album like this, especially in the context of progressive rock. While highly acclaimed in more niche music critique circles, I don't think this ever made its way into a broader public consciousness. So, perhaps not.

Whole not quite at the Guided by Voices level, this is an intriguing album that never stays in one place long enough to bore you.

I couldn't have disliked this much more. It felt like being pounded over the head with a hammer for an hour and a half. It's obvious these lads are talented, but I with they would use their talents for good, not this hyper-frenetic bullshit. 2 stars for the effort.

Sing To God is not actually as bad as it could've been given it's an hour and a half of proggish rock, but for the most part it stays away from prog and instead sounds a bit glam, a bit Britpop (especially vocally, he sounds like Brett Anderson from Suede quite a lot of the time, Odd Even could be one of their songs), and Side 2 is pretty listenable in an indie-punk-glam sort of vibe, like a really low-rent Bowie in places. It's way too long and not good enough to get a 3 but it's high 2 sort of territory, weird as it is.

Great talent, good ideas but it's just too much. Too long, too dense and not really well composed.

Fast-paced noise, cartoon-like sounds, random sounds...that's what I found on this album. More than an hour of the same stuff was too much. Maybe I don't appreciate this kind of proposals, but that's just my feeling.

What a long, strange journey this is! I started off annoyed at the manic nature of this. TWO HOURS?! Good god no! Then I put on the headphones and started to do some work while I listened. A lot of weird things went on. Somehow I fell into a groove and I was at some twisted fun fair teetering from one crazy ride to the next, never quite sure how the experience would go down. This crazy carnival at times had me nauseated, thrilled, scared, and annoyed. But no matter how I felt at the end of one ride I couldn’t wait to jump on the next one. Just like I did at the fair.

This got to be one of the weirdest albums in this list... No idea why I liked it.

I know that there is not exactly a rule for user's submitted albums, but I think they almost all follow the line of "this album is missing on the original 1001 list". When I got this one, it was unavoidable to think: Right, another hidden British 90s rock album was precisely what was missing from a list with hundreds of them.🙄 However, my sarcasm was activated too soon since I enjoyed this album. They have the right amount of 90s energy combined with a pinch of experimentalism that makes it for me. Even after 1089 albums, most of them are British hidden stuff, and there is indeed more stuff to discover.

An interesting choice, which links (through former member Bic Hayes) to one of my favourite albums (Dark Star - Twenty Twenty Sound). I was entirely unaware of this when it was released, even though I was a music obsessed teenager from the same island as them - they didn't get much (if any) radio play, but probably shouldn't have.

You know what, I didn't really want to like this album at first, but these fuckers won me over with their enthusiasm 4/5

Really interesting, needs several listens

Enjoyed the cover and nurses whispering verses. It was overly long

This was weird but not terrible. Kinda liked it a bit. 3.5/5 but rounding down because I’ll like a lot more 4/5 albums more than this one.

Another fourth studio album? Wow. That was one long album. I'm not sure I fully understood it. Mind is still processing what it was about. I guess the chances of me listening to it again are fairly slim.

This was better than I expected it to be by taking some fun turns into pep band and bombastic theater sounds. Still not sure if the second disc was super necessary.

Great fun, but the album loses a bit on being overly long. Thanks for the recommendation.

If this is a genre, it would be Weird Rock

I didn't hate this. I nearly did, but I found some of the music was really good. Didn't really mix with the lyrics but generally it was interesting.

I'm probably at fault here but there is just too much of everything. I can't get a grounding as to what is going on. I can't enjoy it but deep down I feel it is probably amazing. Like Trout Mask Replica. I enjoyed the experience though.

I'm not sure about this, it's a lot to take in, maybe I love it? Maybe not at all? I'll have to listen to it a few more times.

This has now been a three times "did not finish" Which is odd, because I don't exactly dislike it. I much prefer the tracks which seem to rip off the John Lydon vocals over the ones that seem to rip off Damon Allbran or David Bowie. Honestly, what this album is is way too fucking long. After throwing literally everything at the wall to see what sticks, these guys went to the foot of the wall afterwards, picked up the hour-and-fifteen-ish minutes of the stuff that didn't stick and fastidiously, painstakingly glued it to the wall anyway. A lot of THAT, came unstuck, so they went back, examining all around the skirting board to make sure they weren't accidentally standing on some of it, and proceeded to nail in the stuff that didn't, couldn't and wouldn't stick on in the previous two goes. I've read some of the reviews, including that of the submitter, and the positive reviews are scarily reminiscent of how I feel about Lexx. Lexx is a terrible TV show. The scripts are bad. The acting is bad. The special effects are bad. The music is bad. The plotlines are bad. Literally every single aspect of Lexx that could ever be plucked out and examined outside the context of Lexx itself is bad. No, not bad. Awful. Toe-curlingly, fist-clenchingly awful. You regret every second you spend watching Lexx, because it is unimaginably, irredeemably bad. But if you persist, if you make it through, you're left with the honest and very real sense that you've experienced, witnessed and endured somethings astonishing. I mean, you haven't. You've watched Lexx and that is objectively terrible by every measurable metric. But you actually feel good about having done it, which is genuinely very, very odd. I'm afraid that despite the comparison, Sing to God does not compare. There are moments of genuine interest in here. The last 3-4 minutes of "wireless" are divine. And, as previously stated I don't exactly dislike a lot of what's going on here. The vocals copy SO MANY people, and do so quite well. To get to true Lexx territory, all of these must fail. Dirty Boy, for example, has hints of Brett Anderson of Suede as well as Paul Draper of Mansun. Neither comparison is ill-founded - and that's my point entirely. It too good in too many places to be the hot mess that it is. Despite the final note being held for what seems like 47 years - it doesn't disguise the fact that there is good stuff there. And that's painfully unforgivable.

I can only assume this is a big deal if you have ADHD. 2/5.

Some of the musical sequences/sections are great. Interesting and enjoyable. However, the whole thing is glued together with what sounds like a zany musical carnival. Creative, yes, but it sounds weird for weird's sake.

Creepiest album cover ever? Maybe. They definitely came for that title hard in this photo.

Sounds like having a cardiac arrest

All just felt a bit chaotic, maybe jsut wasn’t in the mood for this today. I’m sure if I gave this time I might learn to love it.

The music between the noise was enough to keep me listening through the pain. But I won’t be going back.

Did I like this? No I did not. And what a shame if was 1hr 30mins. Look I can appreciate that was epic, that was a lot of music. Some of it intricate and complicated, talented musicians but so much of it was just too much. Like the prog rock stuff just feels like an intense person chewing your ear off at a party who you can't shake off. This was like that. Like I said, I can appreciate the talent within it. But I did not enjoy this

Not for me. Prog. rock rarely tickles my fancy and the Cardiacs didn't do it for me (so far). I tried to listen to both discs (whatever was Spotify) and I think I made it to about the 50 minute mark before I had to move on. I'll visit the last 40 minutes later.

There are some good tracks on here (“Fairy Mary Mag,” “Dirty Boy”) but, when you’re throwing everything against the wall for 88 minutes, you’re bound to have some decent moments. Edit this down to 30ish minutes and it would probably be pretty good.

Not really for me. Vocals are not strange, challenging listen.

Rock progresivo. Tostón rallante. Un 2. Pufff, el disco dos es tan sumamente lamentable que un 1.

I usually get upset when someone interrupts me while trying to listen to albums at work. I was okay this one got interrupted. Didn’t go back later. This is like clown prog? Not sure what’s happening

Kill me now.

This was like if you took meth and acid at the same time. It was chaotic, weird, and just not a good time. This album is way too long but it’s also just not very good. There’s been music on this list that may not have been my favorite but it could still be subjectively good. This album, I mean, is pretty close to objectively bad. 1.3/10

Overrated.

I couldn't. I thought we were through with the insufferable with the 1001 in the rear view and these being used picks. Who would do this? Is it a prank? 90 minutes of a cacophony. One star. Bottom of the heap. I refuse to torture myself.

Probably one of the worst bands to enjoy some level of success. I'm all for weird (love The Residents), but Cardiacs are so abrasive and jumbled and rather one-note in their sound and style. "Dirty Boy" is not bad and was my introduction to them. It was distinct enough to encourage me to look into them more. But then everything else of theirs just kind of runs together with their frenetic weirdness.

What is this trash? See Eat It Up Worms Hero. This is like a goofy carnival hosted by a stadium rock version of The Smurfs. Why do their vocals sound like that? and that's side 1. Side Two starts with Dirty Boy doing more of the same and boy is that ending vocal harmony held forever. Nurses Whispering Versus is actually a song I can get down with. Wow I am happy that is over.

God at 90 minutes I knew I was in for something. I had some hopes it would be good, but in the end I found myself really annoyed with this more than I should. It was a frustrating listen and really did not connect with me. Too many songs, too long of an album, too much meandering. The top comments mentions editing and I agree. I dislike The Residents a ton, but I appreciate they knew how to edit. Their album was 33 minutes and I really didn't like it, but it's only 30 minutes gone. This is 3x as long which makes it way more annoying. Cut this thing in half, edit properly, and I'd enjoy this. My personal rating: 1/5 My rating relative to the list: 1/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No.

Awful. Unlistenable.