ON LAND AND IN THE SEA

Would you believe me if I told you that this is a mixture of Voivod, Gentle Giant, Supertramp, Frank Zappa, Genesis, Van der Graaf Generator and many more bands and sounds absolutely extraordinary? I would understand that you wouldn't, because this crazy statement seems very difficult to put into practice, with so many ideas and revolutions. And if I add influences from classical music, punk and psychedelic rock to this compendium on top of that? It would already seem impossible. But there is one band that had the ability to make such a wild recapitulation work: Cardiacs. "On Land and in the Sea" doesn't make use of ambition, it makes use of the album. Even with Zappa's superb discography, it is not unreasonable to question the peak of the avant-progressive sub-genre if one brings to the table this masterpiece, which might well be the quintessential avant-progressive were it not for albums as foundational as Hot Rats or The Grand Wazoo were long before. But, even with any album you can think of, none is a tough enough rival to topple this Cardiacs work; an album as fierce as it is vigorous.

It is very difficult to do justice to the theoretical and creative level of this album in a couple of words. The amount of strange things that happen in the course of the album is outlandish. The band sweeps away many of the general tenets of making rock music - such as regular tempo or major/minor tonalities - so that what is left is a hyper-avant-garde barbarism, as if constantly complaining, but complaining at everything; the only thing that is right is their sound. In lyrics and harmony there is a very intelligent irony that has to do with the order of things, and this is where art comes in to make magic (it does exist within musical creation): this album doesn't stop being catchy for a second, there is no intention of pausing. Everything is incredibly complex but enjoyable, the instruments shine everywhere in all their volumes (the guitar strength that Tim Smith achieves is something that science could not explain) and what in theory is impossible to hear can be heard. Even riffs that seem like they would be normal, then get distorted in some way.

It's a tricky task to make a structured and harmonious conjunction out of a showy sonority, especially if you're going to defy dozens of music rules, but these guys don't seem to be afraid of anything. Category is, in Argentinian slang, that which makes the difficult seem easy, and the musicians of Cardiacs get away with 100% of these risky decisions. It's really impressive that the album doesn't falter for a single moment, considering that they vehemently follow the twisted formula of excessive avant-gardism; that area in which so many bands fail because they don't have the necessary hierarchy so that these projects -which in theory sound so beautiful and promising- don't fall apart completely. Many will agree with me that, because of their very rare framework, this is a band you either love or loathe. The juggling they constantly attempt could also be seen as a succession of stubborn reversals, methods that attempt to separate each song into several parts and fail. And I think this is the key moment of the album's reception: these structural elements are the ones that receive the viewer's emotionality. And, as I just said, they either fascinate or repulse you. There is a conscious and rational construction of instrumental vigour that I find marvellous and that was very important for the time, since we should not forget that this album is released in the late 1980s (and that, apart from personal opinions, it competes for being the most complex pop album of the year).

Each track can be thought of as a Lennon-McCartneyan super-pop of many songs in one, so if there is any difficulty that can be complained about the band, it is the sustaining of the longer songs, out of this assembled machine that does so well with the 3 or 4 minute vaudeville to attach the multiple ideas that want to be carried out. Whether it suits the listener's tastes or not, it is undeniable that Cardiacs have come to revolutionise punk-pop, and they have done so within the confines of progressive rock. In my opinion, it is one of the most extraordinary masterpieces of the 80s and of all avant-progressive. Certainly, an album that could never be overlooked.