There are two primary issues with this album. Number one. There is a growing circle of people who treat this album as the second coming of Jesus Christ. Number two. This album is not very good. Some things can never be reconciled.
The cult status that this album has achieved over the years is something to behold, and when you look at the sheer scope of this thing, you get it. You understand. 90 minutes of music, 22 songs that spring from one idea to another at head-spinning velocity - all this from a band which could never break through but whose leader's fractured songwriting style has begun to be associated with unrecognised genius.
Interestingly, once every two years or so I try to get into Sing To God by Cardiacs (1996), and each time the Headache sets in. The Headache comes at different points - sometimes it is there from the very beginning and sometimes it hits me at some point during "Dog-Like Sparky". But inevitably it comes, and Sing To God becomes a chore to sit through. Let me try to describe it for you: what you get here is a mess. A chaotic onslaught of snippets and half-melodies that come at you like a flood. There are moments when you think you are hearing a soaring hook worth keeping ("Bellyeye" shows promise), but fear not: in a second or two, the said hook will be washed away by cartoonish vocals, keyboard sounds and yet another wave of disjointed nonsense. So that you will be left wondering: was the soaring hook really as good as all that? Maybe these half-melodies would never stand a chance if you gave them some air to breathe?
Because there is no air on this album. It is suffocating, it is intoxicating in the worst way possible. If that is Tim Smith's writing style, then so be it, but I vehemently disagree with that style (and I downright protest against the vocals). If anything, it just feels fraudulent and unfocused. It is as if a man spent his whole life listening to music (all kinds of it: punk, music hall, progressive rock, Britpop, etc.) and was then asked to cram it all into a double album. For us to untangle and make sense of. Which could sound intriguing in theory, but in practice this is Olivier Messiaen having a desperately unfunny go at pop music.
I guess if you surrender to the cult, you will hear the utter genius of the honestly rather good "Dirty Boy" but at halfway point I start losing my mind and that awful cover is beginning to really get under my skin.
