Chrome - Chrome Box (1996)

Posted By : capt.evil1 | Date : 10 Oct 2009 07:32:18 | Comments : 3 |

Chrome Box was originally released as a limited edition six-LP box set in 1982, containing 1978's Alien Soundtracks, 1979's Half Machine Lip Moves, 1981's Blood On the Moon, 1982's No Humans Allowed and the two-disc Chronicles set of rare and unreleased tracks. Though it's an expensive rarity in its original 1982 vinyl incarnation, the goth and industrial-influenced reissue label Cleopatra Records recreated the box set with this release, which also adds bonus tracks at the end of all the original discs as well.

Easily the most substantial and essential overview of the original Chrome lineup fronted by Helios Creed and Damon Edge, which fused Captain Beefheart rhythms, No Wave aggression and a proto-industrial mindset that made Chrome probably the single most influential American act in the style, alongside Europeans like Throbbing Gristle and Einsturzende Neubauten.

The eccentric musical visionary and virtuosic guitarist Helios Creed started his career with the groundbreaking Chrome, which combined the minimalist aesthetics of punk with the driving rhythms and innovative recording techniques favored by groups like Neu! and The Silver Apples. Along with similarly minded groups like New York's Suicide, Chrome would prove to be a major influence on groundbreaking industrial acts such as Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire.

No anthology can offer a complete overview of Chrome's sprawling discography, which includes nine full-lengths and countless demos and B-sides, but Cleopatra's expansive Chrome Box does offer an accessible account of Chrome's history. The first disc focuses largely on the punk-inflected experiments of The Visitation and Alien Soundtracks, which saw the group doctoring the misanthropic three-chord racket of songs like "March of the Chrome Police" and "Zombie Warfare" with blasts of white noise and unsettling instrumental textures. The subsequent discs document Chrome's evolution into the fully-fledged noise terrorists heard on albums like Red Exposure and Blood On the Moon. ~ Bob Lennon

Damon Edge & Helios Creed

Disc 1 (491 MB)
1. Chromosome Damage
2. The Monitors
3. Pygmies in Zee Park
4. Slip It to the Android
5. Pharaoh Chromium
6. Magnetic Dwarf Reptile
7. TV As Eyes
8. Zombie Warfare
9. March of the Chrome Police
10. You've Been Duplicated
11. Mondo Anthem
12. Half Machine Lip Moves
13. Abstract Nympho
14. Turned Around
15. Zero Time
16. Creature Eternal
17. Anti-Fade
18. I Left My Heart In San Francisco
19. Meet You in the Subway
20. Excerpt From Read Only Memory
21. Informations

EAC Log Disc 1

Disc 2 (489 MB)
1. New Age
2. Eyes On Mars
3. Jonestown
4. Animal
5. Static Gravity
6. Eyes in the Center
7. Electric Chair
8. Isolation
9. In a Dream
10. Danger Zone
11. The Need
12. Perfumed Metal
13. Insect Human
14. Brain Scan
15. Instrumental (Non-LP Track)
16. Out Of Reach
17. Blood On the Moon
18. Innervacume
19. Planet Strike

EAC Log Disc 2

Disc 3 (500 MB)
1. The Manifestation (Of The Idea)
2. Firebomb
3. Shadows of a Thousand Years
4. Future Ghosts
5. Armageddon
6. Heartbeat
7. Off the Line
8. 3rd From the Sun
9. Anorexic Sacrifice
10. Beacons to the Eye
11. Open Up (Locust Door)
12. Gehenna to Canaan
13. Wings Born in the Night
14. Tribes (Ultra)
15. Gehenna Lion

EAC Log Disc 3