It’s finally here, in all its tainted glory, streaming filthy banners in the mist, trumpeting across the waves of time like a pirate ghost ship, ringing its mournful bells, warning that it’s time to be boarded and have all manner of mud and dirty joy plastered across your wretched and grateful souls.
In short this was the album they were working on before Tim Smith slipped his moorings and sailed to new horizons. And it slowly ebbed with each new tide into myth, oft mentioned in hushed and reverential tones before the hearths and hearts of many pond dwellers, pursuing rumour and hearsay into legend. Until one day, when Jim Smith decided that the time was right, and the massed ranks of the ABC family and friends decided to set sail anew and, aided and abetted with new crew mates on board, to finish the damn thing off. And here it is. One big album bursting with all the love and respect, compiled over the past couple of years from original tapes dating back to the early 2000’s, Craig Fortnam overlaying brass and string arrangements, while singers Mike Vennart and Rose-Ellen Kemp plugged the gaps that were left.
‘Men In Bed’ is as powerful an opener as you could wish for, with strident chords under a mass chorus with woozy brass counter melodies weaving around a tune reminiscent of early classic ‘Let Alone My Plastic Doll’ (which may have been no co-incidence as, before embarking on this project, they had performed their early back catalogue at the legendary Garage concerts in 2003). The same could also be said for ‘By Numbers’ which is reminiscent of their earlier punk stuff like ‘Gloomy News’.
Obviously Tim is all over this album, even when his voice isn’t. It’s all there in the dense and obtuse words and scatty arrangements. It’s all there in the heart racing starts and stops, and the gloriously epic highs and lows. It’s all there in ‘The May’, which surfs along on a crest of Bob Leith’s furious drums, and Kavus Torabi’s ridiculously fast guitar fills, making you smile with a delicious glee, and I love the way it segues straight into ‘Gen’ from the Ditzy Scene EP, with elements of Beefheart’s Magic Band in the guitar and drums (which I’d never noticed before).
Get ready for psychedelic overload with ‘Skating’. In fact just overload. I like things good and weird and this really doesn’t disappoint. I don’t want to say too much about it apart from it’s probably my favourite track on the album and for those of you who haven’t yet heard it you really are in for a treat. ‘Breed’ is a beautiful song which sounds more Spratleys than Cardiacs, and, despite the tender care given to it, it really misses Tim and Jo’s voices. Great slide guitar though. From: https://joyzine.org/2025/09/10/cardiacs-lsd/
