I didn't know punk and progressive rock could sound so good merged together, and for 22
tracks at that! Once you start to like this album there's no turning back. This is a true
gem.
A very unique album, even for Cardiacs. This is them at their poppiest (for most of the
album) and a lot of the tracks breeze by... but since there are a whopping 22 of them it's
still quite long. This greatly mitigates my only real problem with the album: the last few
songs seem to slow the pace down so much and generally not be interesting enough of songs to
really end the album on the right note. Anyway, considering the lineup changes, relatively
large gap of time between releases, reasonably major stylistic changes, and sheer amount of
totally new material, the album is remarkably good and contains some of the best moments in
the Cardiacs discography (such as the solo in "Fiery Gun Hand", the first Cardiacs song I
heard) as well as a few songs widely appreciated by fans ("Dirty Boy" and "Bellyeye", for
example). Not the best starting point if you want longer, proggier songs, but definitely an
essential listen eventually.
