So . . . seems like every other trendy indie band has put out an album within the past few years, the message of which might boil down to, "shit is fucked, these are dark times," or something similar. That's all well and good, but I haven't been listening to much of them. You know what I have been listening to, though? CHROME! I fuckin' love Chrome. At their best anyway. First got into them in the mid-aughts, kinda late, with a greatest hits thing, yadda yadda. But I've been rounding out the collection as of late, and I really do think they belong in a class all of their own. Not sure many of the bands they've influenced have reached the same heights. There's something really unique in there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14lk_yDeVZI

Have got the deluxe edition of Half Machine Lip Moves, Red Exposure with the bonus tracks, Blood on the Moon + Eternity, 3rd From the Sun with bonus tracks, No Humans Allowed, and the two volumes of Alien Soundtracks compiled on CD are headed this way. What else should I get??

Share your Chrome impressions, if you like.

Love Chrome since the mid 80's. Totally unique, interesting, dark, good, and fun band. I have a playlist of my favorites I play now and again. Their "Lost Tapes" album Half Machine from the Sun is pretty wonderful. I actually backed into Chrome from hearing a Helios Creed track on some compilation, maybe an Alternative Tentacles comp? I can't remember.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK3TWx8 ... LdFkKih-M-

A long time ago I took a few more edibles than I should have and listened to Half Machine Lip Moves for the first time. It scared me the same way that Evil Dead scared me when I was a teenager and got too high, in a super narrow, focused fear that was blurry and like nothing else.

I turned it off and listened to the Misfits box instead.

Since then, I've listened to that and other records enough to say I'm a fan, but I need more time. But man that one experience was wild.

Total not crap.

Incredible merger of acid-fried psych and proto-industrial, retro-futuristic bleeps and blorps. Love it.

The first LP (before Helios joins) is just ok. But the second one until the great unraveling (whenever Edge took the name to France and formed a new band) are all tops. (Don't much care about the more recent, Helios-only version of the band either. Those two guys seem like they needed one another to truly shine.)

Aside from the obvious appeal of the sound, I love both the sleaze ("Slip It to the Android"!) and the anxiety that bubbles below the music.

The video for "Meet You in the Subway" blew my fucking head apart when I saw it as a kid on either late-night cable TV (USA's Night Flight maybe?) or on one of the Target Video VHS compilations in the '80s.

For all of Chrome's technology posturing and refusal to play live gigs, the music also sounds both very human and very rock'n'roll, in retrospect. Which I appreciate.

Firmly not crap, flanged and phased waffles after the early '80s.

Love Chrome. I did see them live and Helios apparently couldn't see his frets, which made for a rough set. His solo album Superior Catholic Finger is great, too.

OrthodoxEaster wrote: Tue Jan 27, 2026 5:13 pm the great unraveling (whenever Edge took the name to France and formed a new band)

Even some of this isn't bad, it's even pretty good for 80s "alternative" pop/rock, it's just not Chrome without Creed.

I love this song so much. It's probably like listening to Toto sounds like on while LSD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ManBSZ1TGo

OrthodoxEaster wrote: Tue Jan 27, 2026 5:13 pm The video for "Meet You in the Subway" blew my fucking head apart....

Same.

Alien Soundtracks, Half Machine Lip Moves, Red Exposure, Blood on the Moon, Third from the Sun. Unfuckwithable sci-fi dystopian post-punk cyborg paranoia.

I fucking love Chrome.

enframed wrote: Tue Jan 27, 2026 6:53 pmI love this song so much. It's probably like listening to Toto sounds like on while LSD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ManBSZ1TGo

That 2012 release is very good. Benefits from modern mixing tools, and I admit I don’t reach for the super trashy early records very often these days.

penningtron wrote: Wed Jan 28, 2026 6:18 am That 2012 release is very good. Benefits from modern mixing tools, and I admit I don’t reach for the super trashy early records very often these days.

That's about all I reach for, but I'm also a super trashy kinda guy.

As for Half Machine From the Sun, I've never been able to figure out if it collects the whole of the material from the Ultra soundtrack or not.

That's the scrapped "new wave" porn film or live sex show or whatever for which Chrome was supposed to provide the music (recorded between the first two albums). I think the four-man lineup (w/Lambdin and Spain) was still intact.

There was a reel-to-reel of it auctioned off ages ago, but it was also somewhat damaged (literally and, I would assume, figuratively).

The "Deluxe Edition" of Half Machine Lip Moves, from 2025, compiles the original album plus eleven of those "lost tracks." The mixing and mastering are on point. Recommended.