At times treading dangerously close to revivalist
folk rock, Chemystry Set manages to swath itself in
enough diverse musical ingredients that Cobblestone
Below My Feet feels more like an experiment in
prog-Americana. And for the most part, the band excels
at bridging disparate styles and influences and energizing
one generally homogenous aesthetic. As the disc progresses,
King Crimson-style instrumental flourishes mingle with
cheeky, simplistic Phish-like songwriting, all the
while maintaining a refreshing undercurrent of humor
that never fully descends into novelty.
Ten years and five albums in, this Bay Area band makes
a habit of drastic departures from track to track.
Album opener, “Thwart O-Five” is a beautifully
minimal ukulele absurdist polemic where Baba Ndjhoni’s
vocals flirt with biodiesel, green-freak dada musings: “Jumped
on board a bit too late, I’m nothing but fertilize
/ Though history is my polyglot, I live in present
tents.” While the slightly derivative “What
We’ve Got” with its repetitive “Break
on through” callouts and weaker female vocals
from keyboardist Patty Hughes, quickly wears out its
welcome, Chemystry Set seems naturally attuned to lulls
in its own canon and quickly backhands a staggeringly
delicate jazzy instrumental, “One Never Knows” in
order to keep the disc from stalling. The album is
at its strongest when straight up rock is sidestepped
in favor of more exotic palettes.
Genre-melting fare like the brass-inflected, blues
guitar jam-morph treat, “Zydecongo Stomp” and
the tongue-in-cheek white-boy-reggae callout, “Lo
Grade Dread” (sample lyric: “I and I singing
this should make a Rastaman laugh / I and I got no
struggle to speak of in my past”) allows the
band enough legroom to wiggle out a few killer riffs
and pull of a few illuminating punch lines.
Favorite Track: Track 12, "Zydecongo Stomp”
