Cheer-Accident - Chicago XX
SKU
Rune 476
"There is a lot to amuse and delight about Cheer-Accident...and Chicago XX continues the band's apparent mission to fold as many abstruse styles into their songs as possible...without collapsing into a nightmare tangle. Chicago XX strikes a keen balance between angularity and tunefulness, neither comforting nor intimidating, but performed with incredible skill and precision." – The Wire, May 2020
“We’ve made it to XX!! Yes, it took longer than it took Chicago to make it here, but that didn’t prevent us from calling it “Chicago XX,” did it? It’s a potent little sucker, too. Maybe we shouldn’t still be rocking out this much at “our advanced age,” but... well, we are! Harmony and dissonance, love and hate, oboes and drums… they all help to form this delicious and strange bedfellowship.
Maybe this is going out on a limb, but it’s possible that (in addition to the bevy of instruments on this album) this just might be our most gripping full-length to date on the vocal front: Carmen Armillas and Greg Beemster and Thymme all turn in some poignant and varied performances. And let’s face it, Shelby Donnelly’s artwork is something you’re gonna want to stare at...” – Cheer-Ax
Another really great, indefinable C-A album that stylistically veers everywhere and because of that maybe reminds me a little bit of ‘No Ifs, Ands Or Dogs’.
“Cheer-Accident have just released their 20th album, Chicago XX, whose cover pays terry-cloth tribute to the band once known as the Chicago Transit Authority. In terrible times, it’s important to treasure reassuring things, including brilliant but underappreciated local musicians who just don’t give up...not too many artists can make a chant of “life rings hollow” (on the Chicago XX song of the same name) sound so inspiring.
Founded in 1981, with the new Chicago XX, their third full-length in three years, these indefatigable weirdos have hit a hot streak late in the fourth decade of their career. Jones tells me he was delighted by a comment from a fan at a recent show who insisted that the band combine Chicago with the Art Ensemble of Chicago. It’s as accurate an elevator pitch as anything I could come up with, honestly, except that Cheer-Accident are far funnier than either.” – Monica Kendrick / Chicago Reader
- LabelCuneiform
- UPC045775047621