Inevitably some people will stumble upon this page thinking this is about the twentieth album by the rock band Chicago and finding a Cheer-Accident review instead (there is no Chicago XX by Chicago, by the way; their twentieth album was the 1989 compilation Greatest Hits 1982–1989). But maybe if you’re a fan of the early period when Chicago regularly took risks, you might want to stick around anyway. Cheer-Accident does share the same hometown as the band that started as the Chicago Transit Authority, except that they never transited out of Chicago.
We first visited Cheer-Accident in this space at the release of No If, Ands of Dogs back in 2011 and they stayed silent with new material until 2017 when they burst open with three albums in as many years. Chicago XX is the third of that trifecta, their –indeed–twentieth album since the band’s gestation in 1981.
They’ve weathered a whole lot of line-up changes since then, with multi-instrumentalist Thymme Jones the only founder remaining and guitarist Jeff Libersher still hanging in there since joining in 1987. Sometimes-vocalist Carmen Armillas also returns but bassist Dante Kester, and multi-instrumentalist Amelie Morgan weren’t around for No If, Ands of Dogs. That matters none; Cheer-Accident is the same happy, kooky art rock band with serious songwriting and musicianship chops.
It begins weirdly enough: “Intimacy” characterizes The Residents’ gleefully soulless approach to pop, but “Like Something To Resemble” (video above) is unabashed power pop, except for maybe that brief moment the instrumental break is filled is cascading horns where you might expect a twinkly guitar solo. C-A channels their inner Todd Rundgren on “Diatoms” but again, they can’t help pouring experimental, synth-y sounds over a perfectly good pop melody right in the middle of what was on the verge of being radio ready. Deal with it, that’s just how they roll. Greg Beemster takes his turn on the mic for the bass-less ironic mid-tempo rocker “Life Rings Hollow.”
The odd-metered march of “I Don’t Believe” underpins layered Armillas vocals leading into a buildup led by Jones’ drums that’s always about to fall out of the rhythm but rights itself just in the nick of time (he’s not Danny Seraphine, but close enough). “Plea Bargain” is slightly-off kilter Adrian Belew melodic pop with an Adrian Belew progg-y middle section.
Things turn dark for the back end of the album: Armillas fronts “Things,” a drum-less dirge for the first half, then the gears kick in with a sludgy, heavy metal attack. Jones handles nearly all the music for the forcefully plodding “Slowly For Awhile,” including a glockenspiel from hell.
Just being eccentric doesn’t make one creative, but Cheer-Accident continues to find ways to be a lot of both twenty albums in. Here’s hoping for another twenty albums by this band.
Chicago XX is now out, courtesy of Cuneiform Records.
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