Cold Chocolate

"Cold Chocolate may have started in the rootsy, bluesgrass realm but have evolved into more jam rock with shades of jazz and funk. It makes for a fine musical blend...Part of the band's charm are Robbins and Bernstein's harmonies, which add a layer of sweetness to their beguiling melodies. It comes together to make their music spirited and uplifting."

--Mayer Danzig, Twangville

If Cold Chocolate looks familiar, you may have caught them filling the streets of Saratoga with music at Caffè Lena’s Sing in the Streets in May 2025. Now the Boston-based duo is back, this time bringing their full sound inside to the Caffè Lena stage.

Trying to describe that sound is where things get interesting.

Cold Chocolate began with deep roots in bluegrass and acoustic music, but guitarist, mandolinist and songwriter Ethan Robbins and percussionist, banjo player and vocalist Ariel Bernstein have never been particularly interested in staying inside the lines. Over more than a decade of making music together, they’ve stretched those roots through folk, funk, rock, soul, jazz and jam-band territory, letting a bluegrass tune pick up a backbeat, a folk song find a groove, and an acoustic duo make a surprising amount of noise.

At the center of it all are songs: strong melodies, tight harmonies, thoughtful writing and the kind of rhythmic drive that can make two musicians sound like a much bigger band.

Robbins came to bluegrass after growing up as a classical violinist and falling hard for the music of The Band, Bob Dylan, John Hartford, Hank Williams and the Grateful Dead. Bernstein, also classically trained, brings a drummer’s sense of groove and restraint to the partnership. Together, they can move from hard-driving acoustic picking to a laid-back pocket and into something downright funky without losing the thread.

Their newest album, Not Gonna Stop, released in February 2026, captures a band still pushing forward. It’s Cold Chocolate’s sixth full-length record and another step in an evolution that has taken them from their bluegrass beginnings into a broader, groove-filled Americana sound.

Along the way, Cold Chocolate has shared bills with Leftover Salmon, David Grisman and Angélique Kidjo and built a reputation for high-energy live shows at venues and festivals around the country.

If you heard them at Sing in the Streets, you know why we wanted them back.

And if you missed them that day, now you get another chance with a seat a whole lot closer to the music.

SAMPLE SONG

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Tags

American Roots, Bluegrass, Other, Rock, Soul