A LITTLE MAN AND A HOUSE AND THE WHOLE WORLD WINDOW

This is where the CARDIACS hit their stride after honing and perfecting their sound from the punk roots of their earlier albums. Here they perfected the songwriting, added new instruments, crafted diverse intros and upped the progginess with strange time signatures in unexpected ways including waltzes and military marches. The progressive punk elements are mixed with an Oingo Boingo type circus music effect that firmly cements them in their own branch in the rock universe since absolutely nobody else sounds like they do.

This is one of those rare albums where I literally never tire of it. I can listen to it and then listen to it again and again and again. I am so intrigued by how well crafted this magnificent specimen of musical maestrohood springs forth everything I love about music including somewhat simple catchy melodies that spiral off into subtle prog tangents that don't interfere with the continuity of the simple parts while boldly interpolating themselves randomly into the flow of things yet never impeding it. The songs are more varied on this album compared with the previous ones and there are simpler tracks that are happy being closer to early guitar oriented new wave than full on schizoid hyperactivity that tracks like R.E.S. exhibit.

Despite being utterly shunned back when this was released time has been kind to the CARDIACS since this album is cited by countless artists as being a major influence in their own work and the consistent high praise and ratings only confirm that this will be loved for many decades to come. I am a very late discoverer of this group but once I heard this (my first album) I was instantly hooked and couldn't believe that this came out when it did. A latecomer to my musical collection it is but it has skyrocketed up to the top tier of my absolute favorites.