Despite the cartoon drawing on the front of the CD cover, there’s some mighty serious, yet fun, music on the self-titled first album by San Francisco’s Chillingsworth Surfingham. The brainchild of guitarist / composer John Ashfield, (known here as Chillingsworth himself), the 14-track album borrows from traditional instrumental California style surf instrumentals with a dose of rock psychedelia with an accent on the great San Francisco bands of yesteryear, such as Quicksilver Messenger Service, although with a decidedly surf-rock edge.

Assisted by drummer Percy Surfingham (a/k/a Rob Jacobs), Chillingsworth more than acquits himself on an album of instrumental guitar tracks that never fails to impress the listener with an ocean of inventive surf-rock styles. Whether you take your guitar instrumentals with a dose of early 1960’s nostalgia or prefer the wide open range of music the genre offers in the 2020’s, Chillingsworth Surfingham takes its place among the most inventive surf-rock CDs of the year. John Ashfield himself is somewhat of a modern day music hero, as he also is the chief composer and singer in San Francisco’s pop-rock band The Bobbleheads.