CRACK THE SKY

Between The Cracks CARRY ON MUSIC

Compilation of US prog-pop veterans’ output since the 80s.

On their emergence in 1975, Baltimore’s Crack The Sky hinted at a commercial breakthrough for homegrown American prog, thanks to their way with radio-friendly hooks and sardonic lyrics that offset the knottier corners of their instrumental indulgences. A Sparks-y penchant for tongue-in-cheek art-pop was also always in evidence, and that fed into a shinier sound from the 80s onwards.

It’s that period from 1983 to 2012 that this compilation of less-celebrated deep cuts focuses on. The earliest songs here, chronologically speaking, align themselves with the kind of sounds Peter Gabriel, and for a while Robert Fripp, were shaping once they’d cut their hair and embraced the groove. Monkey Time, a live rendition of a 1983 US single, is reminiscent of Bowie’s Fame-era dabblings in futuristic techno funk, replete with Fripp-style industrial guitar chanks. Coconuts, meanwhile, comes from 2001 album Ghosts but might have been written at the same time: grinding avant-funk redolent of irony-embracing oddballs such as Landscape or Devo.

The anaemic horns and thwacking slap bass might grate on some ears, but CTS retain a talent for smart hooks and frontman and chief songwriter John Palumbo’s reliably pithy lyrics. Immigration, from 2007, is a particularly bold example: lascivious funk rock sung from the point of view of a border guard creepily telling a refugee: ‘I saw you sneaking ’cross the border, I like the way your body sweats.’ The humour is pitch-black but the disgust is real and few other writers would have the guts to be so stingingly satirical. Their prog roots also hove into view now and again, as on Zoom, which seems to bear more than a passing resemblance to Comfortably Numb before breaking down into a juddering groove decorated with staccato sprinkles of jazzy piano.

In truth CTS have probably always been too idiosyncratic for their own good, but their cult appeal is well deserved, as this typically unorthodox approach to a compilation proves.