Not a Food sounds very much of its time, but that's not a bad thing -- on this record,
Cheer-Accident shares features with a number of the best noise and math rock groups of the mid-'90s. The band has
Helmet's slashing angularity and rich guitar distortion, along with the studiously complex rhythms of
Don Caballero. But most importantly,
Cheer-Accident shares its puzzling sense of anti-humor with
the Boredoms or the Cows. "Grow II," for example, begins with a chorus of nasal voices screaming "wahhh!" at irregular intervals, and ends with a cutoff so abrupt that the CD sounds as if it's broken. Many of
Cheer-Accident's more straightforward sections, particularly the quieter ones, begin to blend together after a while. But the group's perverse mind games, along with the confounding, trickier-than-thou rhythms of some of the more up-tempo tracks, make
Not a Food well worth checking out. ~ Charlie Wilmoth