Upon release the album was mostly overlooked, with the exception of some hostile reviews, reflecting the band's unpopularity with the music press at the time.

After Cardiacs released their fifth album On Land and in the Sea (1989), the group's line up drastically changed; percussionist Tim Quy, keyboardist William D. Drake, saxophonist Sarah Smith and guitarist Bic Hayes all left the band.

[12] I remember Tim had programmed the weird bit in the middle of "Odd Even" and left me to find a guitar line amongst the chords so I was sat on my own dropping myself in.

"[9] During recording there, Tim Smith would create drums and rough keyboard chords on tape and would ask Poole to come up with guitar and bass riffs.

"[3] A journalist from PIEmag said the album was "more original and dynamic than ever before; they mix their classic Cardiacesque, huge orchestral harmonies with delicate pop, fast rocking and furious, at times almost Naked City-ish jazz structures.

To add yet another dimension to their music, they experiment with sound and production in a way we haven't heard since the heyday of Psychic TV, or even the old 'kraut' bands like Faust, Neu!, Can etc.."[7] Benjamin Bland of Drowned in Sound said that "somewhat approximate to the notion of Cardiacs squared, Sing to God essentially takes everything Cardiacs had always been and ramps it up to maximum."

That's without even mentioning the bits that sound something like Sgt Pepper being performed by a Frank Zappa conducted London Symphony Orchestra on speed.

"[3] Sean Kitching of The Quietus said the album is "the pinnacle of Tim Smith's studio mastery and exhibits elements of the gentler side of his Sea Nymphs project alongside the full-on helter skelter, breakneck velocity more usually associated with the band.

He also commented that the album marked the point where "Smith's ability to express the music inside his head really began to transcend any sort of identifiable genre and turned Cardiacs into something truly unique.

[13] "Billion" is allegedly the first song which Tim Smith ever wrote, resurrected and recorded many years after its composition,[citation needed] whilst "Wireless" features Tim Smith reading from a children's story called "Peril on the Sea" written by Dawn Staple, who would join the band in 2004 as a percussionist and backing singer.

[8] Sam Shepherd opined that "if you were to take a guess at what Smith was suggesting with this album it would simply be that the world is a magical, wondrous place, and that it is still possible to see it through a child's eyes.

Creation is covered in the beautifully grotesque "Insect Hooves on Lassie", which finds Tim indulging in a little re-designing and making his own kind of hero dog.

"[4] Sam Shepherd of MusicOMH said that the "gently tinkling wind chime and then short passage" sound like "the twinkling of the stars that grace the cover of the album.

"[6] "Eat It Up Worms Hero" has been described as coming "something of a shock, shaking the listener rudely out of their reverie" and as "easily the album's most abrasive and chaotic sounding track."

It is a product of Smith using the studio as instrument, conducting a mass of choral voices against buzzsaw guitars and manic electronic pulses.

[4] The "singalong craziness"[3] of "Dog Like Sparky" combines "a tale of everyday pet disablement to a wonky oompah knees up".

[6] Kitching called it a "stupidly, almost overwhelmingly happy song with a playful blasphemy hidden in its heart ("Put your hands on the Holy Bible and scream wank") and an utterly demented keyboard refrain that sounds like a fleet of ice-cream vans chiming simultaneously.

In anybody else's hands it's a song that could be described as metal or punk, but there are so many flourishes, so many deviations and any number of ridiculous fuck yous to convention that it can't be labelled.

Almost imperceptible shifts in chord patterns push the song towards rapture as it progresses, so that as it reaches the half way point there's already a sense of epiphany.

[9] "Dirty Boy", which opens the second disc, is "perhaps the album's crowning achievement" according to Kitching, beginning with a guitar riff and alchemically transmuting that song over the course of its nearly nine minutes duration with "celestially ringing sounds" constructed by "innumerably overlaid strata of acoustic guitar and incredibly drawn out sustained vocals that when performed live had an undeniably consciousness-altering effect on all those present.

"[14] "Red Fire Coming out from His Gills" returns to the "aquatic fairy tale theme" of the end of "Wireless" and "turns it into a classically infused anthem that wouldn't be out of place as the soundtrack to a really strange animated children's TV show.

He said that the album was named it "merely because [former Cardiacs keyboardist] Bill Drake had this little kid-hymn book and it was called Sing to God and we thought it was a nice title."

Sean Kitching of The Quietus said that "the creepy fairytale atmosphere" of the film "makes it an entirely appropriate image that resonates perfectly with the album's overall vibe.

The fact that the band members' eyes are all rendered artificially larger, suggesting wide-eyed children, or perhaps adults returned to that beatific state by the administration of some pharmaceutical philtre, also attests to the truly psychedelic nature of the sounds contained within.

[4] Sam Shepherd of MusicOMH called it "the latest in a series of re-issues of albums that have long been unavailable, except to those with exceedingly deep pockets on eBay.

"[7] One British journalist in a later review of Sing to God said that "such negative feelings [about the band] must be discouraged, given the joys contained within their kaleidoscopic world.

"[3] Over time, music critics have re-evaluated Cardiacs and their albums, and today Sing to God is considered a masterpiece,[4][14][25] and is often regarded as the band's magnum opus.

He said "it would be possible to write about Sing to God and the sheer brilliance of Cardiacs for ever, but the truth is, words will never be able to describe just how incredible the band and this album is.

Prior to Sing to God, it's an argument that may have held some water, but over the course of two discs (or four sides of vinyl) there is not an ounce of fat or mindless folly.

"[6] Sean Kitching of The Quietus said "this is a wonderful album for those whose hearts lack the cynicism to ridicule its often delirious flights of fancy, a cornucopia of synaesthetically rendered technicolor delights for those who have not yet lost the innocence required to be receptive its psychedelic splendour.