Anthology 1979-1983

Performer: Chrome
Producer: Helios Creed; Damon Edge; Damon Edge
Distributor: E1 Distribution (USA)

Notes: Chrome: Helios Creed, Gary Spain, Hillary Stench (bass guitar); John Stench (drums); Damon Edge. Personnel: Helios Creed (vocals, guitar); Damon Edge (vocals, synthesizer, drums, tapes); John Stench (drums). Additional personnel: Fabienne (vocals); Betsy Hill (cello). Audio Remasterer: Seth Crenshaw. A relentless assault of Stooges-informed guitar grind, tape loops, doom, and weirdness, ANTHOLOGY 1978-1983 effectively distills Chrome's peak years into a single throbbing platter. The album blasts off with singer/guitarist Helios Creed's debut with the group, "Chromosome Damage," and Creed's freak-blues guitar lines sprawl over the rest of the proceedings, with Damon Edge's ramshackle-Can drumming making for the perfect Siamese twin. Song titles such as "Zombie Warfare," "March of the Chrome Police (A Cold Clammy Bombing)," and "Firebomb" tell you all you need to know about the lyrical content, but good luck digging the words out of the thick haze of effects and distortion. As this set makes clear, the shadow of Chrome looms large over almost any musician who has since decided to cloak himself in black.

Reimagining the cosmic angle of Hawkwind and the harsh psychedelia of Silver Apples for an urban dystopia, San Francisco's Chrome represented the extreme experimental wing of early punk and were instrumental in the creation of industrial music. The band underwent many line-up changes in their lifespan, but either founder Damon Edge or guitarist Helios Creed--recruited after their 1976 debut--or both were constants. Over the course of their late '70s albums, the band's sound morphed from noise-based, heavily affected guitar psych to a more synthesizer- and programming-driven approach. Damon Edge recorded many solo albums under the Chrome moniker in the mid '80s and early '90s, while Helios Creed retook the reins when Edge died from heart failure in 1995.

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