CARDIACS - LSD

Actually, no: the track to start with is definitely “By Numbers”, at least if you're an Xtc fan (and maybe even if you're not). A brief, number-crunching rundown (the title allows for it) of this darting power-pop whirligig that seems bent on pushing the metric kaleidoscope of “English Roundabout” to its extreme: 4/4, 7/8, 10/8 alternating with 7/8, a brief break in 17/8 – perhaps to be read as the chorus – repeated with suitable variations, otherwise it'd be far too easy to get used to it.

Too disorienting for a first encounter, you say? Then why not something more welcoming and good-natured, even a touch folky. “The Blue And Buff” has the ring of a nursery rhyme and the bouncy verve of a sunshine pop gem (think “Happy Together” by the Turtles). Ah, and two guitar solos that are suitably out of their minds, plus a Picardy cadence to close things off, just for good measure (another thing it has in common with “Happy Together”, incidentally).

So there's no escaping it, is “LSD” an eighty-odd-minute manual for music nerds? Hold on before jumping to conclusions: that reading holds up, but it's only one of many possible ones. Perhaps the most prog one (speaking of which: “Skating” is an almost eight-minute suite with flashes of surf-rock and Devo-like zigzags, said to be inspired by “California” by Mr. Bungle). But the punk side of the operation counts for just as much. The raw energy, the wilder edge of the sound, the insolence of a band that couldn't care less about looking well-behaved and buttoned-up – if anything, they rather enjoy being grating. As examples one could cite the very same tracks mentioned above, but just to follow the album's spirit – that is, to mix things up a little – let's turn instead to “Lovely Eyes”. Straight, hammering drums, dynamics cranked to the max, a blazing rock'n'roll solo that hammers away at two notes to the point of exhaustion (never mind the ever-present strings, they're just there to distract you from the point!). And then the vocals, raucous, abrasive: the combination of Vennart, Kemp and Torabi's voices gives rise to a single vocal chimera, capable both of coming remarkably close to Tim Smith's unmistakable petulance and of infusing it with its own, amphibious personality.

"A Roll From A Dirty Place" also kicks off quite jagged and street-rough, while "Downup" unleashes the most melodious possibilities of Vennart's voice, counterbalancing them with a prickly guitar strumming, all skewed toward the high end — in its own way still rebalanced by the elegance of the brass counterpoint. Is it clear by now? Tim Smith and his Cardiacs never wanted to be boxed into just one thing.

The shift to the tracks where it's the late leader's own voice that resurfaces — "The May", "Spelled All Wrong", "Ditzy Scene", "Made All Up", the already-mentioned "Gen" — isn't jarring: a sign that the album's troubled genesis didn't compromise its coherence and success. Undoubted credit also goes to mixing engineer Adam Noble, a veteran who's already proven himself with Biffy Clyro, dEUS, Leprous, Pineapple Thief, and who here shows himself up to the decidedly non-trivial challenge of integrating material recorded years apart from one another.

And yet, artistic fidelity doesn't mean standing still. The desire to wrongfoot the listener emerges in tracks like "Volob", the most unexpected piece of the lot. Not so much for the cleanness of the voice or the nod to Gentle Giant — to whom Tim Smith was always devoted — but for the pulsing, almost dance-punk beat, and for a shadowless brightness that launches the atmosphere onto unprecedentedly Yes-like heights.

The wait has been long — not as long as the millennia separating the passes of the Hale-Bopp comet, but long enough to lose faith in a possible return. And yet, the Cardiacs' anomalous trajectory had one last, magnificent sneer in store for the laws of rock: a posthumous record that sounds more sincere and vital than most reunions. For those already devoted to the cult of Tim Smith, "LSD" is the legacy that closes the orbit. For everyone else, it's the last call to look up, and let themselves be dazzled by the spectacle.