THE SEASIDE

The last of the early Cardiacs tapes albums finds their classic sound really coming together. It's all here - the post-punk anarchy, the progressive creativity, and the off-the-wall carnival atmosphere which is the Cardiacs' special secret ingredient.

It should be noted that four songs - Nurses Whispering Verses, Is This The Life?, A Little Man And A House, and Dinner Time - are absent from many rereleases of the tape. On the one hand, this isn't quite the loss you might think, because all of those pieces were rerecorded for later albums - Nurses Whispering Verses is on Sing to God with different lyrics, whilst the other three appear on A Little Man and a House and the Whole World Window. That said, the renditions here are sufficiently different to be interesting, so my advice to fans would be to hold out either for one of the rare original cassette releases or take the much more sensible approach of picking up the 2015 CD reissue, which finds the missing tracks restored at last.