Cardiacs - Musical & Lyrical Style

Musical & Lyrical Style

We are not a progressive rock band, progressive rock bands usually tend to have a particular style to them, however individual the bands sound is, there is usually a flavour there which is the prog flavour. We are a pop group...We are as punky as nothing. God forbid if anyone thought that we were a crazy "fusion" of punk and prog. If a word is needed then I would use "psychedelic" if anything.

Cardiacs' music is noted for balancing the attack and 'raw energy' of punk rock with the intricacies and technical cleverness of early British progressive rock. The band also incorporates elements of other musical forms such as ska, mediaeval music, folk music, heavy metal, hymns and corporate anthems. The music magazine Organ once commented that "one Cardiacs song contains more ideas than most other musicians' entire careers."

The broad combination of styles in the band's music has sometimes been referred to as "progressive punk" - or "pronk" - and has led to Cardiacs being labelled the primary exponents of this musical style. Tim Smith rejects the term, and prefers the description "psychedelic" or simply "pop". Musicians which the band have cited as Cardiacs influences include XTC, Van der Graaf Generator, Gong, early Split Enz, Gentle Giant, Alberto Y Los Trios Paranoias, early Genesis, Deaf School and Wire. Smith has stated, "I don’t know what influences us really, I wouldn’t say that we are influenced by any actual bands in particular". Tim Smith has denied that Gentle Giant was an influence on the band, but Sarah Smith says that they were.

Think about what pop music is, and where it has been, the things and changes that it has gone through, however ridiculous. All pop is ridiculous and fantastic. Who is to say that you can't do whatever you like with it when you look at its history?

Earlier lineups of the band were sextets and octets employing extensive use of saxophones, percussion and live keyboards. From 1991 onwards, the band was a rock power quartet centred on two guitars (with the remaining keyboard and percussion parts sequenced on tape). Vocally, Cardiacs employ a distinctive singing style centred on Tim Smith's lead vocals (reedy and high-pitched, with a strong punk-styled Estuary English accent) and choral sections (varying from yelled to falsetto) involving most or all of the band. Smith's singing style has been described by music critics as 'skittish'; it has also been commented that his singing voice sounds very similar to his speaking one. The band's music is written almost entirely by Tim Smith, although contributions have been made by other group members.

Smith is also responsible for the majority of the band's lyrics, which are written in a cryptic fractured form of English alternately hailed as poetic or nonsensical. He has generally refused to discuss their content, preferring to keep the words and their inspirations shrouded in mystique and allowing for fan interpretations. Smith has also sometimes employed a cut-up lyrical approach drawing on the works of (among others), William Blake, Charles Kingsley, William Shakespeare and T.S. Eliot. Two favourite cut-and-paste sources are Pedro Carolino’s English As She Is Spoke (a failed Victorian English-Portuguese phrasebook once hailed by Mark Twain as a perfect example of absurdity) and the nineteenth-century Irish poet George Darley. Fans have also spotted references to the films The Night of the Hunter and Eraserhead in Smith's words and music videos.