The 1981 Listening Post - Chrome - Blood on the Moon

 Chrome - Blood on the Moon

#194

May 31 1981

Chrome

Blood on the Moon

Genre: Techno Psycho

3.25 out of 5 

Highlights:

Perfumed Metal

Well, Chrome, this is more like it.

If you take the swirling ambient instrumentation of Bowie’s Scary Monsters album and incorporated it into the minimalism of Helios Creed and Damon Edge, this is what it sounds like. 

Chrome will eventually let me down but that’s, I think, because the duo split up, Helios Creed basically telling Edge to off off and the backing section of The Stench Brothers also left. And that might have been the secret sauce. Because Edge, while putting out one very good record in 84 with Alliance, falters all over the place with later Chrome records. 

Ultimately, every track sounds alike and I think that’s the point. I don’t know that this album is actually supposed to be listened to as much as it’s supposed to be something that you spin in a dark, dank, BDSM club bar. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/blood-on-the-moon/296618883

The 1980 Listening Post - Chrome - Red Exposure

Chrome - Red Exposure

#136

April 5 1980

Chrome

Red Exposure

Genre: Electronimental

1 out of 5

I don’t know what Chrome doesn’t do it for me. I should love this stuff. One thing this project has taught me is how much I enjoy the post-rock, post-everything, sounds of MX-80 and The Pop Group’s Y album and Chumbawumba’s first record (I know, it’s not this but, you know where I’m coming from). 

I also adore Gary Numan and, to an extent, Kraftwerk. And Xex as well. Chrome feels like I should adore them and I just do not. I find them grating and sort of cloyingly desperate to be appreciated. And yet, Damon Edge’s first solo album, years later, was excellent. As was Helios Creed’s solo outing in the mid-80s. 

Clearly these guys needed to be away from each other. 

This might be amazing, it doesn’t hit me where it should. 

https://open.spotify.com/track/5wwbNh9I5r4SAs1P6eis2H?si=oNy_EDQWRfOOHcNsur8uZw

The 1986 Listening Post - Chrome - Dreaming in Sequence

Chrome - Dreaming in Sequence

#278/1403

July 1 1986

Chrome

Dreaming in Sequence

Genre: New Wave

1.75 out of 5

The surprise to me of Damon Edge’s album the previous year was how much I liked it. 

Not this time. I’d rather go back and listen to Suicide records. (Well, who wouldn’t?)

It’s ugly, this thing. Taking the worst instincts of Bowie and Neu and Numan and distilling into this garbage collection is what they’ve done here. 

I know what they are trying to do. Trouble is the record seems more obsessed with the idea of doing this music rather than actually coming from an honest place of craft. 

Next. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/dreaming-in-sequence/729271606