Not a Food

Chicago’s Cheer-Accident are an endless enigma, trafficking in everything from epic-scale avant-prog to tuneful piano-driven pop across their four-decade history. Knotty heaviness has always been key to their sound, but on 1996’s Not a Food, they foregrounded it majorly, resulting in their single burliest release. Tracks like “Ice Cream and Lies” and “Nutrition” are filled with crunchy, ever-mutating riffs that groove as much as they bewilder thanks to the deep-pocket swagger of drummer-cofounder Thymme Jones, joined here by guitarists Jeff Libersher and Phil Bonnet, and bassist Dan Forden (also the original audio designer for the Mortal Kombat series). Ever experimental, the band also stirs in hypnotic extended grooves, unsettling ambient interludes and goofball vocal babble, detours that only highlight the ferocity of the more aggressive bits.