Kevin Bronson on November 14th, 2011

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Hearing the new single from Cardinal takes me back to the 1990s and the early days of the Internet, when music geeks (ahem) trawled Prodigy newsgroups to find far-flung but like-minded friends and share new sounds. It was via a transatlantic mixtape – a handmade cassette – that I discovered a clamorous Australian psych-pop outfit named the Moles [“Surf’s Up,” for you noise-pop kids looking for a cool song to cover]. The band was fronted by singer-songwriter Richard Davies, whom I would encounter a short time later, in 1994, when he teamed up with American musician Eric Matthews to release the self-titled Cardinal album [check out “You’ve Lost Me There”]. The duo’s textured orchestral pop seemed to pick up where the Left Banke and Beach Boys left off, but the partnership would be short-lived, leading to an acrimonious split. Davies went on to make some solo records (“There’s Never Been a Crowd Like This” is recommended) and collaborate in 2009 with Robert Pollard as Cosmos. Matthews put his astute songwriting and arranging skills to use on five solo albums, including two very good ones for Sub Pop in the ’90s, and last year released an album as a collaboration called Seinking Ships. There. All the dots connected now? Well, after several false starts, Davies and Matthews have mended fences long enough to complete a new Cardinal album, the first in 18 years. “Hymns” will be out Jan. 23 on U.K.-based Fire Records, and it does not disappoint. It’s meticulously crafted and arranged, deeply evocative, and sounds timeless. And ready for my next mixtape.

||| Stream: “Love Like Rain”: