The legendary prog group Cardiacs have at long last announced that their 6th and final album, LSD, will see the light of day this year.
Coming 26 years after their last effort, Guns. The album has been subject to multiple delays including scrapped sessions in 2001, after founder and frontman Tim Smith suffered a stroke and cardiac arrest in 2008. While work slowly continued in the aftermath, Tim’s health made progress extremely difficult and his untimely death in 2020 seemed to put an end to the project, with one of the few finished tracks, “Vermin Mangle”, being released to coincide with his funeral later that year.
However, driven by Tim’s brother and Cardiacs bassist Jim Smith, work resumed with Cardiacs alumni and new members being brought in to contribute and ensure Tim’s final opus would see release to the general public. A series of shows beginning in 2024 saw a core lineup with a rotating cast of special guests, and Jim announced a targeted release of April 2025 for LSD. Though that was later pushed back, the band have since announced that the album will finally come out on 19 September 2025. To accompany the announcement, a new single, “Woodeneye”, was released.
“Woodeneye” was written entirely by Tim Smith but he was unable to complete recording vocals, so additional vocals were added by Jim, drummer Bob Leith, guitarist Kavus Torabi, Rose Kemp, and Nick Howiantz, with lead vocals taken on by Mike Vennart (Oceansize, Biffy Clyro and Empire State Bastard), who has confirmed that he will take over lead vocals for the foreseeable future. Numerous other guests, including Napalm Death bassist Shane Embury, Scaramanga Six alumni Steve Morricone and Stephen Gilchrist, and Pinback/Anal Trump/et al. multi-instrumentalist Rob Crow, are set to feature.
The tracklist for LSD is as follows:
1. Men In Bed
2. The May
3. Gen
4. Woodeneye
5. Spelled All Wrong
6. By Numbers
7. The Blue And Buff
8. Skating
9. Breed
10. Volob
11. Busty Beez
12. Lovely Eyes
13. Ditzy Scene
14. Downup
15. A Roll From A Dirty Place
16. Made All Up
17. Pet Fezant
Preorder the album here: LSD | Cardiacs
