A CHAOTIC EXCITING ALBUM // Cardiacs - On Land And In The Sea // Composer Reaction & Analysis
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- Опубліковано 22 тра 2024
- Bryan reacts to and talks about his thoughts on Cardiacs' album "On Land And In The Sea"
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00:00 Intro
02:07 Reaction: Two Bites of Cherry
05:29 Analysis: I Have Limited Context For This
10:52 Analysis: Wild Polyrhythms and Meters
16:00 Analysis: Odd Melodies
20:14 Analysis: Harmonic Information?
24:29 Lyrical Dive: Two Bites of Cherry
28:34 Reaction: Baby Heart Dirt
32:59 Analysis: Hilariously Unexpected
33:35 Analysis: Bass Tone and Writing
36:05 Analysis: Punky Circus-y Sounds
37:11 Analysis: Lots of Fun Timbres
38:48 Analysis: Treble Heavy Production
41:32 Lyrical Dive: Baby Heart Dirt
43:36 Reaction: The Leader of the Starry Skies
47:40 Reaction: I Hold My Love In My Arms
48:54 Analysis: Rough Transitions and Chaotic Structure
53:50 Analysis: Sax and Fun Writing
58:26 Analysis: Rhythm Section Foundation
1:00:35 Lyrical Dive: ...Starry Skies
[delete all footage after this time stamp and append to the second video file]
1:02:35 Analysis: Syllabic Focus
1:06:13 Lyrical Dive: I Hold My Love...
1:07:04 Reaction: The Duck and Roger the Horse
1:11:24 Analysis: PHC Sounds?
1:16:31 Analysis: Pure Experimentation
1:19:13 Analysis: Highly Repetitive
1:20:07 Lyrical Dive: The Duck...
1:21:41 Reaction: Arnald
1:24:37 Reaction: Horse Head
1:26:05 Analysis: New Sounds For Them
1:29:50 Analysis: Vocal Rhythmic Repetition
1:34:10 Lyrical Dive: Arnald
1:36:53 Lyrical Dive: Horse Head
1:38:38 Reaction: Fast Robert
1:42:52 Reaction: Mare's Nest
1:47:10 Analysis: I'm Learning A Lot About Cardiacs
1:48:43 Analysis: Time Manipulators
1:52:02 Analysis: Wild Performance
1:55:35 Analysis: Sonic Experimentation
1:56:57 Analysis: Shifting Harmonic Complexity
2:00:21 Analysis: Borrowing Lines From Poetry
2:04:35 Reaction: The Stench of Honey
2:08:23 Reaction: Buds and Spawn
2:15:07 Analysis: Trading Off Opposing Ideas
2:22:19 Lyrical Dive: Buds And Spawn
2:24:07 Lyrical Dive: Stench of Honey
2:26:00 Reaction: The Safety Bowl
2:28:34 Reaction: The Everso Closely Guarded Line
2:36:58 Analysis: A Focused Kind of Experimentation
2:45:02 Lyrical Dive: Safety Bowl
2:46:10 Lyrical Dive: The Everso Closely...
2:49:47 Outro
#reaction #cardiacs #artpunk #progressiverock
What I love is how much you laugh listening to Cardiacs...I do too,...the unabashed weirdness, brilliance, absurdity and wild creativity always put a smile on my face.
There's an element of Cardiacs that reminds me of the show "Garth Marenghi's Darkplace." I think it's a very British flavor of absurdist humor smashed up with pure passion and melodrama. I'm sure there are some people who don't find the curve balls comical but I absolutely love 'em.
@@CriticalReactions that's a great comparison!
"Does humor belong in music?" Well yeah, yes it does. Spontaneous release of joy.
@@CriticalReactionsDarkplace is absolutely superb.
Always love your Cardiacs reviews. Not sure if you know, but from what I understand, Tim wrote out scores for each musician in the band for each song; he certainly incorporated suggestions if he thought them worthwhile, but he was the boss and didn't leave much to chance when it came to compositions.
"Horsehead" and "The Safety Bowl" are kind of a preview of what The Sea Nymphs (a side project of the band that Tim Smith and two other Cardiacs members William D. Drake and Sarah Smith started) sound like: a more stripped back and quiet psychedelic folk take on the odd time signatures and sudden shifts present in Cardiacs' music. All three even sing on Horsehead.
Just a minor addition, but that little glockenspiel bit at the end of The Everso Closely Guarded Line is what's known as the Cardiacs Chimes, it's a musical phrase that you'll find in various places across their work. The album Heaven Born and Ever Bright starts with it, for example, and I believe it was also often played at the start of concerts during the so-called Vile Countdown. Within the lore of the band I believe it's commonly regarded as the sort-of 'theme tune' of the Alphabet Business Concern.
Last week a bunch of us Pondies actually got together in London and Leeds for a series of tribute concerts, and I can honestly say, it was one of the best concerts I've ever been to!
Bryan, it’s always a joy watching you react to and analyze Tim’s tunes. This one was no exception, and I’m happy you took the time to analyze a whole album’s worth of songs and come to understand some of the reoccurring musical patterns and “compositional philosophy”, for lack of a better term. It’s my personal opinion that this album in particular is by far Tim’s most inaccessible and homogenous, and that you’d likely find the cohesion, diversity, and maturity you’re looking for in the 2nd half of Tim’s career after the end of the “classic” era, which this album was the culmination of.
I’d recommend you take a listen the the last Cardiacs studio album, “Guns”, which is an interesting paradox of an album as it employs a more measured and subtle use of Tim’s genius, while also being the height of Tim’s compositional chops and evolution as a composer. Alternatively, the double album which came before it, “Sing to God” is their most diverse album and does the best job of showcasing everything that Tim is capable of, imo. You’ve listened to a couple of songs off of it before, but I think you’d find it more interesting and rewarding to listen to now, especially after having gotten your ass kicked by “On Land and in the Sea”. In both StG and Guns, the songs tend be more focused, which each belonging to their own distinct universe, whilst “On Land and in the Sea” sort of feels like the same hyperactive kid coming back to the same carnival-just on a different day of the week.
I don’t want dig on “On Land” too much though. I think the reason it’s so loved by a lot of fans is that it is the absolute peak of the “Classic” era of the band, with them taking the style they forged on “A Little Man and a House and the Whole World Window” and “Songs for Ships and Irons” and pushing it to the extremes. It is the first album of Tim’s where you really start to hear things you “didn’t think were possible in music before”, and there really is nothing else like it, nor could there ever be. Like I said earlier, although it’s more chaotic and disjointed, it’s definitely not random. To my ears (it took me many listens), it’s the joyous sound of a free spirit who’s completely unconcerned with what people may think of this music, which is why I think myself and other fans find it so inspiring.
A couple of other unrelated things: Cardiacs have been off and on Spotify throughout the years (with more time spent off than on), so that 9,000 isn’t that great of a metric to judge their popularity by, although they absolutely should be more well known than they are. Also, the visual component of their shows and Tim’s stage presence is a core part of the band’s identity-there’s a compilation video on my channel of some of those best moments if you or anyone reading might be interested in checking out.
Keep em coming man!
My introduction to Cardiacs was "A Little Man and a House, and the Whole World Window" - which brings you in via "A Little Man and a House" (which you've already done), takes you through the rather more conventional anthemic "Is This The Life?", through a few more "interesting" tracks until you get to another one you've done, "R.E.S.", and then immediately let's you back down to something approaching normality with "The Whole World Window". For that last song, I would also recommend adding in the solo piano cover by "The Barnslou Trio" (studio version) on UA-cam - which was later played at Tim Smith's funeral.
Oh, and if you want a tangent the ex-keyboard player with Cardiacs, William D Drake, does some interesting stuff: "Distant Buzzing" has an "Official Video" with a tender throw-back to his Cardiacs days - his old uniform, make-up, and The (original) Consultant all make an appearance.
Saw them a few times back in the very early 90s - amazingly fun and incredibly tight.
Cardiacs are a big part of the soundtrack to my life for over 30 years and that is not as long as some Pondies. Live they were astonishing. I never get tired of listening to any of their material. Even when you know the intricacies of the music the songs still excite. Laudation!
First time I heard this cassette on the bus coming back from college I was confused... sooo very confused... but there was nothing else to listen to and nothing else to do.
The second time around a few weeks later I knew what to expect.... and on the second listen I fell in love with the LP and the band.
Saw them live half a dozen times... epic.
I stumbled into the Pond, as they say, little more than...two..months ago? Time is slippery in here these days. It does however feel like Cardiacs been with me, or should have been with me much longer than that. Brilliance.
Funny you mentioned Gong. Kavus Tobari one of the most recent Cardiacs Guitarists (he didn't play on any released albums but is on the garage concerts) also fronts and plays guitar in the current iteration of Gong. Good video of him playing with them ua-cam.com/video/N5QYijFfOaQ/v-deo.html
He did play on the Ditzy Scene single though :)
Absolutely epic album, there’s so much to take in and inevitably gets better with each listen. The Everso Closely Guarded Line is my absolute favourite Cardiacs song, Tim Smith true genius
It's very enjoyable watching someone hear Cardiacs songs for the first time, seeing how they react to all the curveballs, which are literally one after the other, or seemingly on top of each other at times. Great video and deep dive on a masterpiece from a truly one of a kind band.
Really appreciate you exploring Cardiacs. Been a fab for 40 years. Duck and Roger the Horse is my standout from this album.
The band Oceansize are huge fans of Cardiacs (and even appeared with them on stage toward the end of Tim Smith’s time with us) and their vocalist Mike Vennart’s solo work, under the name Vennart, is totally worth you checking out.
I recently checked out a Vennart track so that's a neat little way of bringing some of this full circle!
@@CriticalReactions I do urge you to check out more tracks. His openers tend to be more of a setting of tone than a big statement piece. Also, for whatever reason, people tend to request Oceansize’s more linear stuff. No rush obviously but there’s a lot to uncover in a deep dive.
I'm only 20 minutes in and this is some fantastic analysis. Thank you for teaching us fans new things about the music we love!
Thank you for such a great analysis, and even while you're sick and backlogged a little. I'm glad you can see how the album is a lot and Cardiacs is a lot but that's the only way they can be and the way they're best. You are right they're an album band and it's quite impressive how you pieced the various components of that together during your first full album listen of them.
Interestingly, they started out as an entirely live focused band and stayed at least spiritually that way to the end. Everything they do is intended to be a great live experience, which is wild when you consider how incredibly tough some of it must be to coordinate. In fact their first 2 "albums" were just *incredibly* shittily taped live performances, essentially official bootleg *afterthoughts*.
That The Everso Closely Guarded Line and some of the other later tracks are more cohesive and tame is deliberate. Cardiacs love to close their shows - and modeled after that, their albums - with these luxuriating, hymnal and/or anthemic closers (hymnal and anthemic is one of those things that makes less sense than it does Cardiacs missense). One of my great regrets is that I'll probably never get to see them live, but I could still guess that sitting in one of these closers with everyone else after hours of this oft-frenetic music of theirs would be an incredible live experience.
On the topic of this type of closer, they're generally some of the best Cardiacs tracks but I'd argue that this one is actually one of the weaker ones. The Whole World Window is my personal favorite song of theirs, also in this vein, and you might consider checking more of the closers out since you enjoyed that type of song. Then again.... they're best after the full album, haha.
Shoehorning this in - the rigid and in your face vocal rhythms are something that always struck me as very punk derived, and one of the big ways that Cardiacs always are in part punk. It's interesting you say emo, also true but a slightly different perspective on it.
One last odd thing for now is it's very funny to me that you early said this is music that probably won't immediately grab someone musically illiterate. I very much am that yet when I heard Fiery Gun Hand first I knew before the song was over that Cardiacs would be among my favorites forever, somehow. Since their music is so opaque and I'm so illiterate musically, it is very hard to dissect and model why I like it, and you've helped crystallize some understanding of why this is my favorite album of theirs. The "time shenanigans" in particular that they pull off here are unparalleled and I very much like that kind of thing in all music. I remember realizing previously that about a third (in 2 parts) of Mare's Nest is a gradual and very smooth accelerando and it's just so damn cool to me. Glad we both got to understand Cardiacs better, thank you!
I find it so difficult to wrap my mind around them being a live band. It kind of makes sense given their punk adjacency but, like you said, this stuff is so technical and most bands doing similar stuff (at least these days) are studio bands first. I agree with your hypothesis about their ending having a spiritual element after a long show though. It's kinda like a bit of mental aftercare that comes after absolutely stressing it out with all of the wild sounds they create :)
Glad you learned some stuff with this one and thanks for suggesting it! It was a great first full dive for them.
Tim used fragments of the Lydian sound in many of the pieces, which makes my ears prick up in response. Lovely!
I'd be surprised if you weren't aware of him, but just in case, Tantacrul is an occasional UA-cam/composer that madeba tribute to Cardiacs where he goes over in a bit of technical level why he loves their music so much. Certainly seems to be in the realm of what you're looking for to understand the music more.
Video is titled something real obvious like "why I love Cardiacs"
I just checked that out as someone in the Discord server suggested it as well. Tons of great info in there pertaining to the common harmonic and melodic elements.
That video was my first exposure to Cardiacs :)
@@antlermagick same here and I can't thank Tantacrul enough
I’m a big black metal fan, especially the dissonant and chaotic avant-garde black metal like Deathspell Omega, Abigor, but Cardiacs is one of my all time favorite bands! Dirty Boy was the first thing I heard of them. It blew me away, wanted to explore more, and everything else they did appealed immediately very much to me, and my praise of them is boundless, as their music is. I’m not a fan, I’m more close to a devotee of their music!
Please think about checking out the song Faster Than Snakes with a Ball and Chain - from quite late in their career, it was never on a studio album but it's one of the most complex rock songs I've ever heard. An unknown masterpiece
Yay! More Cardiacs!
Would love for you to do as a thorough video for the other Cardiacs albums
They had been away from Spotify for some time and got back fairly recently.
Wowsers! The most unique band ever! #cardiacs are genius! There's Cardiacs - then there's the rest of music.
Sitting watching this now. Loving your bemusement. I love your videos as you explain music so well and I really love it when you analyse Cardiacs. I only got into them 1-2 years ago. I always thought the music I listened to was good but when I started listening to Cardiacs then other music didn’t really sound… the same. The problem is you’re analysing it, but that’s your job to so it’s understandable. The way I think about it, is don’t try to understand it.
Lyrically I know the later albums takes chunks of what seems to be Tims favourite films. But it… to me … just works. I guess maybe your brain has to be tuned a certain way to “get it” but … I just listen to Cardiacs so much now I just get it. It’s so… unique. A number of people on the Cardiacs Facebook page, when they’ve just gotten into the band, say other music doesn’t sound the same anymore, and I totally agree. Hopefully you do a Sing To God review, as that album by Cardiacs is just amazing.
And… of course… we’re all here for The Duck and Roger the Horse reaction.
Yup, they're a totally different beast of music. It's wild because they have a popular-ish sound but there's a lot of experimental / avant-garde ideas too and it ties to straddle the line between being listenable and esoteric. It's difficult to place them and I think that's why stuff doesn't sound the same afterwards if this really clicks for someone. There's very little outside of Cardiacs (that I know of) that would scratch a similar itch.
And yea....The Duck and Roger the Horse.... that was something 😅
Long-time Cardiacs fan here. I really enjoyed that - thanks! It's always interesting to hear other people's takes on very familiar things. I always thought Buds & Spawn was about reproduction, time passing and the generations. And the music for The Everso Closely Guarded Line is down to Cardiacs' classically trained keyboard / piano player William D Drake, which probably explains its different feel. Ten years after first listening to this album I was still finding new things buried away in it - it's like a big sumptuous feast for the ears.
Can't wait for the five hour sing to god video.
Thank you for this thorough analysis!
This album literally changed my life. In 2004 I had just finished my studies at the conservatory in the Netherlands. I majored in church organ and also had a lot of music theory and harmony/counterpoint, etc. There wasn't much pop and rock music that I found exciting anymore. That was until someone lent me his "On Land and in the Sea" CD. I was immediately sold. But it took a while for the true brilliance of it to dawn on me. Now, 20 years later, I'm still deeply impressed by the album and still get the same euphoric sense of amazement when listening to it.
if you want that 3:30-4 hour reaction experience, i would love if you were to do an album analysis of Sing to God. In my opinion its their best album and really needs to be heard as a full album to connect with it
Oh man, I was hoping you would do an entire album. This is one of my favorite albums of all time. Lot of great thoughts and insights for a first listen! (It does make more sense on repeated listen). Thanks for this!
The most solid Cardiacs album imo (though not necessarily the best track by track)! Damn I’m so happy we’re getting a review of this album specifically 🎉🎉🎉and such an articulate one at that, so thanks and congrats for this 👏👏👏
…Tim? He’s a very special man isn’t he?😊 That was such a long but satisfying ride… Long enough for you to change your hairstyle. Did the album transform you a bit? 😂
Best band in the world, seen them live the most, Tim was a genius! He took all genres and used em all
Wonderful reactions and analyses! Amusing, in-depth (until the spade hit solid rock - no pun intended), and actually a bit thought provoking. I do think that you'd discover more "maturity" in more of the songs on subsequent listens though. The great complexity might come off a bit like "careless paint tossing" sometimes, but it all makes (a special kind of) "sence" once you get familiar. Imho, these songs are of course all more or less masterpieces 🙂
I'll never forget sitting on a bean bag in my friend's bedroom way back in 1989, stoned as a fart and sat between the speakers as this album washed over me. I can honestly say I've never heard music the same way since. For me it's the greatest album ever made. Cheers for the vid and keep listening. It'll all make sense eventually. PS: the last track is a Bill Drake composition.
As far as their being an album band goes, I agree that they work better so. Also this album works well as an album. The odd thing, though is that from what I've heard, its their "Leftoverture". It's a collection of various songs that needed to be released (having been performed and well received at many concerts). So yes, they're an album band, but in a sense, "this isn't an album".
Apropos that, the songs where Sarah or William D. Drake sing, too, are probably leftovers from their *Sea Nymphs* project (which managed to get a Peel Session - something Cardiacs were banned from for reasons no-one knows). That was music that required, "We Three" to be gathered, like weird sisters, almost, speaking in odd, ancient, squeaky voices, waiting to meet Macbeth and set him on the path to ruin after his greatest triumph. They Three was Tim, Sarah, and Good Old Bill. I don't know if you'll like it. I do, but that's generally a good test of whether anyone else will.
As far as the three Smiths goes, Tim and Sarah were married at the time. They would kiss a lot at shows, I've heard somewhere. For a time, anyway. And they became the subject of a rumour that they were brother and sister, and doing things to each other they really shouldn't. There was an article in the tabloid press spreading the rumour (although what I've heard is that they had a friend there who made that happen - for publicity I suppose - and probably just to freak people out, too.)
The other Smith is Jim. Jim and Tim were brothers. Another thing Tim would do is bully and humiliate Jim on stage.
Oh, and then I've seen videos that must've been taken down in which William D. Drake would kneel on one knee before Sarah between songs, like a dapper cavalier, proposing undying love, and she would stretch out her hand to him, so he could kiss it. And he would. And then also the entire length of her arm, her shoulder, her neck and her back, if I remember correctly.
As for the compositional intentions? Tim just wanted to make pop. That's what he said. So there was The Duck and Roger the Horse for the band to go crazy to, and do things like falling down on stage, and then there was Arnald for the audience to hop up and down to. He did write quite a lot of music intended as serious compositorial stuff, but it just stayed on paper, mostly.
The other Tim (I think it's pronounced, "Kye"), the percussionist (xylophones etc) said somewhere that he saw lots of music that needed to be played (as in by quartets or orchestras etc) at Tim's, but Tim just kept it all for later. And then later never came. The stuff he felt was good enough for performance was the pop.
One thing you might want to do if you keep going deeper with this is to watch the video they had made of their last concert as a 6 piece band (and with no pre-recorded stuff or click track), which you can find on UA-cam under the name *All That Glitters is a Mare's Nest* . It's largely songs from this album, but also from The Seaside, and A Little Man and His House and the Whole World Window, so you might want to hear those first before that. (The Seaside has repeats of "Little Man and His House" songs, so probably "Little Man" first, then.) The Seaside is best appreciated through the video they had some art students make a video for. (er... nevermind ... )
Oh and one last thing: Mare's Nest. I once heard I think Adam Neely talking about something famous in music theory where some point is illustrated by two marching bands heading toward the same street intersection playing at different timings, and then as they approach each other, their music moves into step. I have the feeling that's the sound Tim was trying to create there, in the part where the rhythms come apart (and then come back together). He didn't have any training, but was curious about everything, so might've quite possibly heard about the idea and been intrigued by it.
For one of the Cardiacs songs with a bit more lyrical direction perhaps try March. It's not their most interesting piece musically, but I find it has much more thematic direction. It's one of their few songs I'd recommend watching with the lyrics first time.
William. D. Drake does vocals on Horsehead, his solo stuff is worth checking out
It's interesting that a couple of times you pegged a guitar part as being some combo of sax and synth. I'm thinking, "I Hold My Love In My Arms" specifically? There is a lot of layering in these songs like you said and if its not harmony it's different timbres playing in unison. And on 34+ year old recordings I can see things getting a little unclear. There is for sure guitar throughout a lot of this album though, but to be fair to you the one two punch of Tim's songwriting and all the bells and whistles they tend to throw in is very distracting indeed 😅 This era is just plain manic and surrealist. Probably why I love it! If you get chance Bryan definitely check out a compositional analysis of some of these songs. There's a bunch of cool, almost Olivier Messiaen-like ideas Tim Smith uses, with whole tone movement and such.
Great breakdown..what I love about Tim's writing is he says ..its all just tunes innit.
Just in case you wondered if this stuff was possible live, check out this: ua-cam.com/video/lmitqsDp1uw/v-deo.html As a twenty something music student back in the early 90s, someone played the VHS tape at a party and I was totally blown away. The epic arpeggio section of Fast Robert was a goosebump moment for me. Also hard to believe Duck And Roger The Horse works so well live.
Duck And Roger The Horse was always an absolute fucking rager live
First World War themes are abundant in Tim's writing ...so words like "Shell" and "Arms" take on dual meanings
Thanks for that, another informative and nicely balanced reaction. Next, on to A Little Man and a House!
1:07:30 Lol (I'm pretty sure when I first listened to this album this was the point where I started to love it)
Tim bullied his brother Jim into being that solid on the bass 😂
The fact that you keep returning to Cardiacs kind of tells me you're enjoying them more than you realize. ;-)
Two more things: one thing that generally escapes people trying to analyze Cardiacs is the strong ties to 19th century hymns/Pomp and Circumstance and all that kind of overblown rural Britishness (which is also a clue to the ever present 3/4 and 6/8 rhytms). It's all over the place here. And harmony-wise: Tim just loves stapling major chords of all sorts on top of each other, regardless of tonality.
I love bands I can laugh with.
This band is one of them, great musicians
Time manipulation point: Tim wrote all of his stuff down on manuscript. All of it. And self taught. Get a load of that. And the poor saps around him had to try to play it, and they did try like hell, because they loved and believed in him, and they were right weren't they, and they did alright didn't they. The conductor at work -> ua-cam.com/video/Ogevsly5nS0/v-deo.html
Trying to keep up with the time signatures and failing haha. It's always amazing to me how natural they make this stuff sound, it's wild but the songs feel like they just go that way, it doesn't feel disjointed - in fact after your ears adjust it sounds like pop.
Lyrics wise I rarely ever know what Tim is on about, I wonder if a lot if the time he's choosing words for their sound over their meaning.
Cardiacs reward repeated listening I think, like Zappa you get overwhelmed by the statistical density and abundance of ideas but after a while you can appreciate the songwriting underneath. They are truly amazing.
Now you have to listen to Sing To God!
4/20 miracle, baybeeeeee. I do love this album and every instrument is playing its own earworm-y hook every 5 seconds, but the lack of marimba on this one bugs me to the core. It's definitely the point in the discography where the Production starts becoming the focus (Production overtaking musicianship is my main beef with Sing to God), but there's good balance on this one.
Genius🎩
What's that distorted voice in the background at about 12:50?
(May not be anything at all since I'm quite stoned right now)
Soooo that's another instance of the audio equipment in this house picking up some signal. I've heard that out of TV speakers, in headphones connected to PCs, and it's even shown up in my videos (such as here). I don't know what it is but it's been happening for over a decade.
@@CriticalReactionsMan that's bizarre. You've got ghosts in the equipment or something.
🌼🌼🌼👍
There is a peculiar Englishness about Cardiacs that might be hard to spot unless you're British / English yourself or have spent a lot of time here. There are snippets of Victoriana in the music, like Salvation Army brass band tunes, hymns, music hall, and Gilbert and Sullivan. There's nothing remotely bluesey or American sounding about them.