Chrome : You've Been Duplicated
On March 15, 1979 the San Francisco underground band Chrome released Half Machine Lip Moves, one of the year's most influential records, hailed by Wire magazine as one of the "100 Records That Set the World on Fire (While No One Was Listening)," and by MOJO magazine as a buried treasure.
The album arguably marks the birth of a certain kind of industrial rock favored by Nine Inch Nails and Big Black. It's an aggressive set featuring Helios Creed on a sound effects laden guitar, vocals and television and Damon Edge on drums, scrap metal, Moog, Waterphone and tape. Both studied music theory in college and, yes, both have dropped a fair share of acid. The lyrics could have come from a Stooges album set in a paranoid science fiction universe filled with zombies.
A full decade ahead of its time, Chrome achieved only cult status. Edge refused to play live. He moved to Europe and died of heart failure in 1995. His body went undiscovered for a month. Helios Creed has reformed the band which released Techromancy in 2017 and was touring in 2018.
No comments:
Post a Comment