England’s zolo band Cardiacs return, despite the 2020 passing of frontman Tim Smith. Indie band Great Grandpa are back with their first record in six years, while country star Tyler Childers is wide-ranging and philosophical on Snipe Hunter.
Cardiacs
LSD
2025, 7.5/10
The Cardiacs make incredibly dense music. They blend the energy and aggression of punk with the complexity of progressive rock. They only released five albums during frontman Tim Smith’s lifetime. When he passed away in 2020, twelve years after a life-changing cardiac arrest, it seemed their catalogue was complete.
But the band were working on LSD before his illness, and continued to work on it despite Smith’s dystonia. He was unable to play or sing, but indicated his intentions with the position of his eyes and his left hand, using an alphabet board. His brother Jim, the band’s bass player, helped complete it.
Only five of the seventeen tracks feature Tim Smith on lead vocals, but it feels like a Cardiacs record anyway, dense and surprising. But it’s also inconsistent, and I would have preferred a tighter album.
But it’s worth hearing for some absolute doozies. Best of all, the lengthy instrumental ‘Busty Beez’ cycles through glorious chord sequences without resolving.
‘Volob’ is closer to a pop song than you might expect – while Rose Kemp and Mike Vennart’s vocals approximate Tim Smith’s approach, they’re much gentler. ‘Downup’ is another excellent, relatively accessible song.
You’d think that would be the end of the Cardiacs’ story, but they’re apparently working on two more albums.
Great Grandpa
Patience, Moonbeam
2025, 8.5/10
Great Grandpa formed in Seattle in 2014. They’re now spread out over the world – married couple Pat and Carrie Goodwin live in Denmark, while drummer Cam LaFlam works in bookselling.
Patience, Moonbeam is Great Grandpa’s first album in six years, and they’ve taken a rootsier direction. Lead singer Al Menne is transitioning, and the testosterone has thickened his voice.
I’ve always been fascinated by music that is harmonically interesting or unpredictable. My dad, growing up, really liked a lot of the more musically literate singer-songwriters, like Billy Joel or Elton John. If you listen to Billy Joel stuff, you’re like, ‘This is doing some things under the hood that are quite sophisticated.’
In high school, I got into more progressive stuff – jazz and weird classical stuff. I like the novelty part of that, but sometimes the novelty is all there is and the spiritual core of it can be super hollow. I think with Great Grandpa, the complexity is like a cherry on top. But the core song is always something that’s very pop, resonant, emotional.”
Pat Goodwin, GuitarWorld
The jangly, deconstructed ‘Emma’ recalls Alex G. Some band members previously played in more complex genres like math rock and prog, and ‘Ladybug’ is sophisticated, albeit jangly and accessible. The closer ‘Kid’ supplies the emotional heft, written for the Goodwins experiencing a miscarriage.
Delicate yet passionate, Patience, Moonbeam is often lovely.
Tyler Childers
Snipe Hunter
2025, 7.5/10
Tyler Childers was born in Lawrence County, Kentucky, a coal-mining area in the Appalachian Mountains. He studied at the Bluegrass Community and Technical College before recording his first album at 19. He’s now a country star, despite a progressive outlook that includes portraying a gay romance in a music video.
You can trace his lineage back to the heartfelt storytelling of John Prine and Jason Isbell, but that only tells part of the story. On his wide-ranging seventh album, he able to blend silly tales (‘Bitin’ List’), social commentary (‘Eatin’ Big Time’ – about eating the rich), and his spiritual quests in India (‘Tomcat and a Dandy’).
He’s helped by a genre-bending sound that pulls in other strands to his country music.
“Did it come out 10 years ago? Did it come out 50 years ago? What even is it? It removes itself from a point in time,”
Nick Sanborn, GQ
Childers is a fascinating character, and Snipe Hunter mixes country traditions with progressive thinking.
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All three picks are intriguing. I previously included Tyler Childers’ most recent album “Snipe Hunter” in a new music review back in July, and musically speaking, it’s probably the album that speaks most to me.
That said, the most remarkable from the three is “LSD” by Cardiacs. While I certainly don’t want to romanticize illness, I just find it incredible how Tim Smith continued to provide input even when he was severely disabled.
Great Grandpa is a bit of an odd name for a band. By contrast, the songs are pretty decent, especially considering it’s their first album in six years and their members are scattered across the globe.