Songs for Ships and Irons > Cardiacs * 1991 The Alphabet Business Concern
Cardiacs are a trip through the British cannon. They touch prog, punk, new wave, pub rock, mod, baroque, jazz, and ska. The excessiveness of 60s psychedelic rock-operas run amuck. Songs for Ships and Irons shows how consistently disorienting Tim Smith’s compositions were. This compilation includes an EP (The Big Ship), some B-sides, and some rarities. The complex and interwoven melodies are like a tangled mess of vines disguising an ancient stone entryway. Childlike lullaby melodies are expanded, aggrandized, and exaggerated into these orchestral walls of sound. Peeling back the excessiveness reveals the simple pleasures, the punk. I was introduced to Cardiacs a couple years ago with their incredible music videos for “Tarred and Feathered” and “RES.” It’s taken me all this time to withstand an album’s worth of their absurdity. Somehow, this craziness has built a cult following, one that continues to grow even after Smith’s passing in 2020 from a tragic (and a bit ironic) heart condition he developed after a heart attack in 2008 that left him unable to perform for much of the rest of his life. I think the cult exists because of how unwavering Smith was, he was uncompromising. Their fourth album Sing to God is 88 minutes of intense, proggy-punk. It’s this middle finger to anyone but himself that gives Cardiacs their hardest edge and merits a solid listening.
Mind is Not Brain > Mock Orange * 2004 Silverthree Sound Recordings
Continuing with the theme of intricate rockers, Mock Orange are some Hoosiers who bloomed out of 90s Midwest emo and progressed into intricate Indie-rock. It makes sense that Cardiacs never became a household name, they were relentless and unapproachable, but I’ve never understood why Mock Orange resides in relative obscurity. I’ve heard they’ve maintained a cult following in Japan? I was introduced to them while attending college in Evansville, IN, the band’s hometown and HQ. This was around the time of their then new release Put the Kid on the Sleepy Horse and there was a lot of energy at the diy event space for their triumphant return. Mock Orange is hard to categorize. I guess you could liken their sound to Built to Spill if you needed to. I like what they have tagged on their Bandcamp page for Sleepy Horse, “post-progressive rock.” We’ll go with that. Mind is Not Brain is a catchy, rockin’, and heady stroll through versatile riffs and inventive song constructions. It’s a record where I sure as hell can hum along to every bass line. Zach Grace’s bass lines were a major inspiration to me when I was primarily playing bass in bands. His imaginative melodies around mathy chord progressions were never excessive or obtuse. All this math and Midwest emo talk, don’t get confused. It’s not wet butter noodle music. On Mind is Not Brain, the fuzzed guitar leads sometimes remind me of Smashing Pumpkins while their twangy string-raking is funky and unique. The riffs on this thing are at once jagged and jumpy; and creamy smooth. “Hawks Can Go” may be the best example of these ingredients coming together. Definitely give this one a try, you just might fall in love. As they sing in “Birds”:
Give you a hook baited with something that you say you don't like.
Try it and like it, give it to a friend who doesn't think about it but likes it anyway.
Gives it to a friend. That's how songs take off with a couple of friends.
The Sophtware Slump > Grandaddy * 2000 V2
Let’s just keep this going, more post-progressive rock of the space variety. A famous record and certainly a treat, The Sophtware Slump is a depressing drift into glitching synths and fizzy guitars produced with both clean and lo-fi studio trickery. Jason Lytle’s ELO influences sat front and center on this record but he stayed true to his slacker aesthetic while attempting a grandiose mission to explore other worlds. If Jeff Lynne quit making disco and couldn’t stop crying, maybe he would have made something like The Sophtware Slump. There’s upbeat moments though. “The Crystal Lake” and “Hewlett’s Daughter” are terrific pop songs and “Chartsengrafs” has that T Rex riff, but I bet I probably wouldn’t add any of them to the party playlist; well, I guess if it’s the right party. The production on this album makes every listen a cinematic experience, just like any good progressive rock album should. Lytle’s ingenuity and genius is his quirky point of view. “Broken Household Appliance National Forest,” that title kind of says it all. Lytle’s world is post-human, forever damaged and yet reclaimed by nature. The stop and go of this song is pretty fun and out there. They play with tempo and fade-ins and -outs that are pretty disorienting and head-scratching at first. Ultimately, these tunes, the strange and otherworldly sounds, invite the listener to inch closer, to tinker with these songs like a sad-scientist, a basement enthusiast, like Lytle, piecing together a built-from-scratch robot in the kitchen, and learn to love the little off-kilter thing you’ve made, even if it won’t win the science fair.