Sing to God is the fourth studio album by the English rock band Cardiacs. Their first album with drummer Bob Leith, it was recorded throughout 1995, breaking a hiatus by the band that had lasted since the band's previous album Heaven Born and Ever Bright (1992). During writing and recording, Jon Poole took a greater role than before, contributing to many songs written by band leader Tim Smith, and writing some of his own. The band decided to create a double album to encompass the great wealth of material written after their previous album. As with the band's previous albums, it presents a unique sound, and is seen as more eclectic than the band's previous albums.
The album was released in June 1996 by the band's own record label Alphabet Business Concern, originally as a limited edition double-disc CD set, before being re-released as two separate albums. Three singles were released from the album; "Bellyeye", "Manhoo" and "Odd Even". Upon release the album was mostly overlooked, with the exception of some hostile reviews, reflecting the band's unpopularity with the music press at the time. However, over time it has gained a reputation as a masterpiece and the band's magnum opus. Sam Shepherd of MusicOMH said the album is "quite possibly one of the greatest albums ever made." The album was re-released in 2014 as a double LP set, the first time it had been released on vinyl.
Background
After Cardiacs released their fifth album On Land and in the Sea (1989), the group's line up drastically changed; percussionist Tim Quy, keyboardist William D. Drake, saxophonist Sarah Smith and guitarist Bic Hayes all left the band. For the band's subsequent album Heaven Born and Ever Bright (1992), the band became a four-piece, with Jon Poole replacing Bic Hayes' place on guitar during the sessions, and the results gave the album a more direct, heavier direction than the band's previous albums. The album was initially released on Rough Trade instead of the band's own label Alphabet Business Concern, who usually release the band's albums. However, as soon as the album was released, Rough Trade "went under" and closed, ceasing to exist, which put the band "in a bit of a financial trap".
Following its release, their drummer Dominic Luckman left the band and was replaced by Bob "Babba" Leith, and the band subsequently became their second "classic" line-up, sometimes referred to as "Cardiacs Mark II". During this period, the members of the band "all got up to other things." Band leader Tim Smith "produced some other bands albums and things like that." In doing this, the band got the money to re-release their own, older material and carry on, "so it was kind of a blessing in disguise in a funny kind of way." As a four-piece, their next album would utilise the studio to flesh out the band's sound. Due to the sheer amount of material that group leader Tim Smith had written over a number of years with little or no Cardiacs live performances, they decided that their new album would be a double album.
Recording The band recorded the album between Spring and Winter 1995 at the London studio Apollo 8, and at Sally Birthday House Studios (a studio of an unknown location described as simply being "somewhere"). Jon Poole recalled that "Jim and Jane's" house was a location for recording." Although the band have a status as a cult band, during recording, the band opened for Blur at Mile End Stadium and recorded a Radio 1 live session with Mark Radcliffe, which aired 24 April 1995, and a Lunchtime Acoustic Session broadcast live on GLR Radio on 16 May 1995.
The album sessions presented a change in Cardiacs' working methods. Whereas most previous material had been written and arranged by band leader Tim Smith, Sing to God features extensive contributions from Jon Poole, who played a strong role in orchestrating Smith's basic material with detailed riffs and keyboard parts and contributed several songs entirely written by himself, whilst drummer Bob Leith also made significant contributions to the album's lyrics. In a 1996 interview, Smith said "I really like the stuff [Poole]'s written, we all do. We're really dead lucky to have someone like him. He's written some great stuff for the new album." Poole recalled that "this was a joyous and creative time and easily the best time I had in the band which is strange as I was going through upheaval in my personal life and had to keep walking off into the fields to have a good old blub but maybe this added to it all! We took the studio to Jim and Jane's place in the country. When I arrived there Jim and Jane were adding snipping sounds with garden tools to 'Wireless'. To this day I think it's one of Jane's proudest moments and I love hearing her tell other people about how surreal it was."
During recording there, Tim Smith would create drums and rough keyboard chords on tape and would ask Poole to come up with guitar and bass riffs. Poole recalled "I was literally allowed to do pretty much anything I wanted." Tim would then "do the production bit" and "get the best out of" Poole. The two sometimes contributed to the writing of each other's tracks, including Smith contributing the string arrangement to Poole's "Manhoo". During this phase of recording, Jim and Jane invited all the band's friends over "every so often for parties that have now gone down in history as being nothing short of legendary." In 2009, Poole recalled that "I still can't listen to Mr Bungle or Mercury Rev without having disturbing flashbacks! It was a wonderful time and something that I'm so lucky to have been a part of. Tim would no doubt echo that."
Music Sing to God presents a unique sound that critics found hard to classify, and is seen as "a record that is scarcely comparable to anything else by anyone else." A journalist from PIEmag said the album was "more original and dynamic than ever before; they mix their classic Cardiacesque, huge orchestral harmonies with delicate pop, fast rocking and furious, at times almost Naked City-ish jazz structures. To add yet another dimension to their music, they experiment with sound and production in a way we haven't heard since the heyday of Psychic TV, or even the old 'kraut' bands like Faust, Neu!, Can etc.." Benjamin Bland of Drowned in Sound said that "somewhat approximate to the notion of Cardiacs squared, Sing to God essentially takes everything Cardiacs had always been and ramps it up to maximum." He noted that "this is a record drenched in deranged pomposity, from the massive riffs to the expansive keyboards and theatrical vocals. That's without even mentioning the bits that sound something like Sgt Pepper being performed by a Frank Zappa conducted London Symphony Orchestra on speed." Sean Kitching of The Quietus said the album is "the pinnacle of Tim Smith's studio mastery and exhibits elements of the gentler side of his Sea Nymphs project alongside the full-on helter skelter, breakneck velocity more usually associated with the band. It is also, despite the richness of its orchestration and more experimental tendencies, decidedly a pop record–one as quintessentially English sounding as Pink Floyd's seminal Piper at the Gates of Dawn or XTC's classic English Settlement." He also commented that the album marked the point where "Smith's ability to express the music inside his head really began to transcend any sort of identifiable genre and turned Cardiacs into something truly unique."
The album also features material originally written for various other Cardiacs related projects. The track "Nurses Whispering Verses" had been recorded twice before, once on the band's 1981 cassette album Toy World and once on the original cassette release of the band's 1984 album The Seaside (it was removed from the 1995 CD reissue, but reinstated on the 2015 CD and Vinyl reissue in remastered form). "Bell Stinks", "Bell Clinks" and "Angleworm Angel", all written by Poole, were all taken from the repertoire of the thrash band Panixsphere, which featured Smith and Poole alongside Bic Hayes and David Francolini of Levitation. "Billion" is allegedly the first song which Tim Smith ever wrote, resurrected and recorded many years after its composition, whilst "Wireless" features Tim Smith reading from a children's story called "Peril on the Sea" written by Dawn Staple, who would join the band in 2004 as a percussionist and backing singer.Sing to God liner notes. Sam Shepherd opined that "if you were to take a guess at what Smith was suggesting with this album it would simply be that the world is a magical, wondrous place, and that it is still possible to see it through a child's eyes. To that end, any religious themes that can be detected are swamped in childlike word play or muted understanding. Creation is covered in the beautifully grotesque "Insect Hooves on Lassie", which finds Tim indulging in a little re-designing and making his own kind of hero dog."
Songs
Kitching, describing the opening track "Eden on the Air", said "a sound like a wind chime being struck followed by some seconds silence proceeds from the initial drop of the needle as 'Eden on the Air' swells, imperceptibly at first, to coalesce like early morning mist, beautiful but only briefly there." Sam Shepherd of MusicOMH said that the "gently tinkling wind chime and then short passage" sound like "the twinkling of the stars that grace the cover of the album." "Eat It Up Worms Hero" has been described as coming "something of a shock, shaking the listener rudely out of their reverie" and as "easily the album's most abrasive and chaotic sounding track." It is a product of Smith using the studio as instrument, conducting a mass of choral voices against buzzsaw guitars and manic electronic pulses. The "singalong craziness" of "Dog Like Sparky" combines "a tale of everyday pet disablement to a wonky oompah knees up". Kitching called it a "stupidly, almost overwhelmingly happy song with a playful blasphemy hidden in its heart ("Put your hands on the Holy Bible and scream wank") and an utterly demented keyboard refrain that sounds like a fleet of ice-cream vans chiming simultaneously." Shepherd noted that "three songs in, and already there's been enough ideas thrown into the mix to fill most bands entire careers." "Fiery Gun Hand" keeps the pace of the album up and then "floors the accelerator. In anybody else's hands it's a song that could be described as metal or punk, but there are so many flourishes, so many deviations and any number of ridiculous fuck yous to convention that it can't be labelled. Which is of course exactly how it should be." Kitching called it "an electrifying piece of avant-pop orchestration with Jon Poole's guitar solo (spliced together by Smith from several Poole solos) redefining the term 'incendiary'."