CARDIACS: SONGS FOR SHIPS AND IRONS (1991; 1986-1987)
1) Big Ship; 2) Tarred And
Feathered; 3) Burn Your House Brown; 4) Stone Age Dinosaurs; 5) Plane Plane
Against The Grain; 6) Everything Is Easy!; 7) There's Too Many Irons In The
Fire; 8) All Spectacular; 9) Blind In Safety And Leafy In Love; 10) Loosefish
Scapegrace; 11) All His Geese Are Swans!.
The title of this LP is an amalgamation of Big Ship and There's Too Many Irons In The Fire, a mini-LP and an EP that were
both released in 1987. In 1991, the band put them together on one CD, added a few
extra rare B-sides and one archive track, and ended up with a fairly weighty
addition to the catalog. And I mean «weighty» in an almost literal sense,
because this is where Cardiacs finally begin to capitalize on the «progressive
promise» and add epic scope, pomp, and symphonism to the still rather
lightweight ska-pop-punk exercises of the previous albums. Not consistently so,
but enough for symph-rock fans to take proper notice.
The very first song, ʻBig Shipʼ, sounds like a
cross between classic Queen and some big, brawny arena rock band with a
penchant for stomping power chords. Loud, martial guitars, organ a-plenty,
vocals that get in your face with a vengeance, and plenty of stops, starts, and
tempo changes in between the oratorio-like choruses to ensure that this is
Inventive Art. Unfortunately, the song itself just isn't very good: the
bombastic sections are too simple and repetitive, relying on hugeness of sound
rather than a classy chord sequence. I wish I could get inspired by it, but
neither the lyrics nor the melody lend themselves to coherent interpretation.
So I start feeling more at ease with the ensuing
songs that tone down the seriousness and bring back the playfulness, craziness,
and ska-punkish spirit, while at the same time continuing to explore all sorts
of novel ideas. ʻTarred And Featheredʼ and ʻBurn Your House Brownʼ leap along
like mad, with vaudeville piano rolls alternating with avantgarde dissonances,
no melodic section lasting uninterrupted for longer than a dozen bars (10cc
said hello), and your head having serious trouble assimilating it all. My only
problem is that they are less capable than, say, Zappa to knock all these things
together into some surrealist musical — the lyrics make too little sense, and the band shows a very limited sense of humor.
As we go on and on, relatively short crazyass
romps like these multiply in number, sometimes interrupted by slower and
statelier pieces of the ʻBig Shipʼ variety — such as ʻStone Age Dinosaursʼ, a
slow, brass heavy hymn; and the instrumental ʻAll His Geese Are Swans!ʼ, which
just acts as a foothold for some guitar and keyboard soloing, some of it very
psychedelic, but most of it rather uninspired. Also, at least one track,
ʻLoosefish Scapegraceʼ, combines both approaches, starting out as eccentric
vaudeville and becoming almost a requiem midway through.
Nevertheless, even if this may all be a technical advance over The Seaside, emotionally these songs
are not much of a departure: still too much of a band that simply wants to be
eccentric without presenting enough reasons for this eccentricity. Once the
initial wave of amusement or amazement at how effortlessly they weave in
elements of symphonism and music hall is over, you might want to ask yourself,
"so what was that all
about?" and realising that you don't even know in what direction the
answer might lie. There's plenty of energy and a lot of fuss, but way too much
ado about nothing, if you ask me — «form over substance» in the flesh. Then
again, maybe it's all about reaching that other
plane of consciousness.
I think the instrumental sections of The Big Ship are well worth listening to if you treat it as, say, bombastic ambient, something that Eno might write in collaboration with 80's era Genesis if he were inclined to. I think it's pleasant enough, even if the song itself is not very memorable.
ReplyDeleteAlso, for all the complexity of something like Tarred & Feathered I find the instrumental riffs easy to hum along with while it's playing, so that seems like a success. I don't think the song benefits too much from all the elements they throw into it though and in the end I don't know if I like it too much.
ReplyDeleteThings will be consolidated in the next release.
ReplyDeleteIn defense of this album... OK, these two EPs... well, they were made in the season of 86/87. ;-) Few things from this season were really inspired.