CARDIACS: ON LAND AND IN THE SEA (1989)
1) Two Bites Of Cherry; 2)
Baby Heart Dirt; 3) The Leader Of The Starry Skies; 4) I Hold My Love In My
Arms; 5) The Duck And Roger The Horse; 6) Arnald; 7) Fast Robert; 8) Mare's
Nest; 9) The Stench Of Honey; 10) Buds And Spawn; 11) The Safety Bowl; 12) The
Ever So Closely Guarded Line.
Listening to this album, which many regard as
the band's ultimate masterpiece, is pretty much the aural equivalent of going,
at irregular, but immediate, intervals from 40mph to 80mph to 120mph to 80mph
to 40mph to 80mph... you get my drift, and I have serious vestibular problems,
too. In other words, it's cool, but... could you slow down, please? Oh, that's
right, not slowing down is an
integral part of being cool. Well then, like John Lennon said, "count me
out... in".
No matter how many times I listen to this
stuff, I cannot properly tell one song from another, for the simple reason that
almost each of these songs is, in itself, three or four songs, cut up, mixed
about, and re-spliced at random (or so it seems to the poor, undefended, naked
ear). This is not something they invented on this album, of course — but this
is where their song-twisting craft truly reaches its peak, and they juggle
these melodies around with such energy and ease as if they all really understood
the deep meaning of such juggling.
Unfortunately, this achievement of total
perfection in the art of «pop trigonometry» has a nasty trade-off — the songs
all collapse together in a flurry, blurry kaleidoscope of craziness that leaves
little, if any, place for emotionality. Not even surrealist emotionality, where
black is white and wrong is right — these songs are just convoluted hysterical blasts,
awesome when taken in in small portions but really
wearying down the potential listener (or the actual me) when swallowed all
together in one go. Something like ʻThe Duck And Roger The Horseʼ, for
instance, gallops along with tremendous force and makes great use of the
collective power of hard rock chords and organ barrages, but when placed in
between half a dozen songs on both sides that also tax your nerves to the
extreme, the typical reaction might just be «enough, already!»
Exhausted and nerve-wracked, I find myself instinctively
searching for something simple, repetitive, unpretentious... and I kind of
find it with ʻArnaldʼ, a triumphant power-pop tune that is almost too repetitive, with an eight-note martial
refrain and a brute hard rock riff to bounce it off; and then, maybe, with ʻThe
Ever So Closely Guarded Lineʼ, the obligatory «grand finale» that closes the
curtain with slow tempos, majestic keyboards, and a (feeble) attempt at an epic
crescendo. Apart from that, the songs just daze and daze and daze me with
insane numbers of costume changes from bar to bar, which sometimes make Frank
Zappa and Gentle Giant come across as pathetic failures. Then again, it was up
to Tim Smith to beat their records, not vice versa, and he seems to have done
nicely — coming out with probably the most complex pop record of 1989.
Would it be justified to say that On Land And In The Sea makes absolutely
no sense? One probably shouldn't be rushing to give an answer, but I am pretty
sure I will never like it more than A
Little Man, if only because it has no equivalent of ʻIs This The Life?ʼ — a
straightforward, understandable, tumultuous song that stood out very sharply
from the rest — and because sometimes too much is too much. I cannot even comment on any of the individual songs
because it would have to be a lot of comments on each, and then they would all
be the same in the end. To say that this record is «crazy» or that it is a
«document on insanity» or anything like that would be too cheap and
stereotypical, yet I have no idea of how to expand on that. I totally admire
the effort, and as far as «achievements» go, the album totally deserves its thumbs up
— especially since I can sense the dedication and the energy sweating from
every pore. But then again, you can also go out in the mountains and dedicatedly
crush rocks with a sledgehammer until your arms fall off, too, and sometimes I
get the uncomfortable feeling that this is what Cardiacs were doing, too, on
land and in the sea.
Although I consider myself a fan...George is right: Cardiac albums are like children - I like them but I couldn't eat a whole one.
ReplyDelete...... but the individual segments really have a habit of getting under your skin ... to the point I'll be humming melodies and riffs for days afterwards. In short this album (like others in their catalogue) has extreme replay value. Personally, I found myself returning again and again until the random bits morphed into a wonderful coherent mess! This is a common Cardiac perception and one that is the ultimate downfall for potential, but impatient fans seeking to enter these tricky waters.
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