Set a Summery Table

Album Review

Rhythm of Black Lines' debut is an abstraction of rock and prog influences, also incorporating jazz structure as it tends toward repetition of guitar or bass figures. Check the six-plus minute title track, which revolves around a simplistic three-note strum and the wispy, barely audible vocals of Clint Newsom. The remainder of Set a Summary Table is instrumental, and in no kind of a hurry. Songs spin out over five-, six-, and seven-minute stretches, building on initial melodies with insistent percussion ("Jeep Jackson," which almost has a jam band feel) and deft, tightly twisting arrangements ("Churcho Meets the White Lion"). It's the opposite case with atmospheric highlight "Preferred Customer," where what sounds like a steel drum plinks out a dreamy music box rhythm as watery bass swirls and random electronic squelch spits in the background. Rhythm of Black Lines seems to occasionally lose interest in its own music, which twinges Summary Table with disassociation or even — hate to say it — laziness. But the band never wavers for very long, carrying ably each song's particular elongated groove. Set a Summary Table isn't going to make anyone dance, but it will feed the strobe light blinking at the center of your brain.