The Cardiacs: Valiance and the (Not Quite) Irreconcilable

by Ari Abramowitz
14 September 2006

It seems so obvious now that punk could be aesthetically reconciled with reggae, funk and disco. When the Ramones and Pistols first launched, I wonder how obvious it was. But THE CLASH, GANG OF FOUR, CONTORTIONS, and others made it so, and a million others also tinkered with variations on the formula. So, if punk-reggae and punk-disco could be done, why not punk-prog?

Sure, punk shared a core sense righteous indignation with reggae, which likely formed a spiritual bond on which a formal bond could be built. But the same could hardly be said for punk and the overtly sexual nature of funk and the outlandish decadence of disco. Yet, the formal bonds were forged, all the same. Punk and prog also seem to stand at diametric opposites, with punk favoring simple song structures, untrained musicianship and vocals, and overtly political and confrontational lyrics while prog tends to favor more complex or extended compositions, highly trained musical skills and metaphorical lyrical approaches.

If I had to distill punk and prog into single-word essences, they would probably be confrontation/provocation and transportation/composition, respectively. In those terms, it is easy to see why punk and prog haven’t gotten together much. Then again, confrontation and Bacchanalia don’t go together like peanut butter and chocolate, either. Even on a formal “sound” basis, punk and prog have had a tough time getting together. Some people might point to the solo work of VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR main-man and JOHN LYDON favorite, PETER HAMMILL. But his anguished, singer/songwriter solo work tends to be too straight-forward for most prog fans to fully embrace as prog and is probably too bleak and harrowing for most punk fans to fully recognize as punk.

Others might point to HAWKWIND as the perfect blend of prog and punk. But again, most prog fans find most of their material, maybe apart from their mid-’70s work, to be far too amateurish and sloppy in terms of technique and composition to be “true prog” while most punk fans would probably object to the band’s frequent, 10+ minute song durations and over-the-top arena stage show. No doubt, cases can be made for a band here or there as the lock and key of the elusive prog-punk doorway, but it’s pretty slim pickings and usually dubious, at that, for one side or the other.
There is one band that, new to my ears, has come closer to nailing certain, core elements of both punk sounds and prog sounds than any other band I’ve ever heard. That band is the CARDIACS.

More among British punk bands than US ones, the vocals are one of the biggest identifying factors: a snarling, snotty spit, more than a little obnoxious, not particularly trained and not particularly melodic, although not completely incapable of occasional silver flashes of melodic beauty. Cardiacs have those vocals. Add some palpably edged-up and jittery urgency and you get more of a sense into the band’s punk-side feel. Too much caffeine, too little sleep, more than a little frustration. Most of the Cardiacs’ verses, taken by themselves, could more easily pass muster through a hard core punker’s filter than virtually any punk band of the past decade. But it’s important to note that while the Pistols are invoked, the band’s pulling more in the direction of WIRE.

And that leads into the other element of the Cardiacs. In between and often a part of the verses are arpeggiated keyboard lightning strikes. Far too precise for punk, they might be called New Wave if they didn’t reintegrate into the song with tricky meters and intricate melodic stops ‘n starts, jump cuts and curly queues. But nifty keyboards, in and of themselves, wouldn’t place them much further along the prog meter than some of the early stuff by the STRANGLERS or the more complex sides of THE DAMNED. It’s that after or around the main verses and choruses, the songs often blossom into symphonic grandeur, with huge keyboards approximating a post-punk take on the mellotron sound of early KING CRIMSON and GENESIS. Harmonies refract gracefully while still maintaining a twinge of their wired origins. No doubt, the Cardiacs and early XTC kept tabs on each other. As Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding followed their McCartney/Lennon-sparked muse, the Cardiac boys followed their Gabriel muse. But the Wire bite never loosened its grip.

Truth be told, I only have the Cardiacs’ first (and supposedly proggiest) album, A Little Man and a House… , as well as around two dozen, random, mostly live tracks from various sources, so I am nowhere near qualified to give you a full breakdown on their body of work and their course of progression and artistic development. Also, the album came out in 1988, even though the band had been playing and recording together since the late ‘70s.

What I can say is that I have not heard another band quite like them (and that the songs from the kinda rough-sounding Obvious Identity album (boot?) show the most balanced punk-prog attack, based on the random tracks I have). And while the Cardiacs may convincingly pass, at various moments, as punk, prog, ska, post-punk, or whatever, it doesn’t necessarily follow that fans of each of these styles will find the Cardiacs’ music irresistible. In fact, the opposite seems to have been closer to the truth during the Cardiacs’ career: everyone ran away screaming.

The punks probably didn’t like the intricate, often complex songs and the keyboards; the proggers probably couldn’t take the snotty vocals; everyone else concluded that the band didn’t know whether it was coming or going, although I bet MIKE PATTON’s a fan. Which means that, despite the valiant attempt (and the Cardiacs’ music is often of a very British failed valiancy), maybe the Cardiacs’ failure in both the prog and punk marketplaces only emphasizes how far afield the two genres are and that prog and punk do remain largely irreconcilable, for the time being. But maybe the Cardiacs have shown the way to start reconciling the differences.

Filed under punk prog