Various Live Show Reviews
Chrome - 2014 Europe Tour
UK's, The Quietus Live Show Review June 21st, 2014
A black hole in the noise: Joe Banks reports from Electrowerkz in London for Chrome's first show there in 25 years.
"Chrome live are a
blast. With his panama hat, beach shirt and tache, singer and guitarist
Helios Creed might look like he's just walked out of The Big
Lebowsk…Chrome are absolutely their own thing. Creed's dense,
compressed guitar sound mimics the squalling innards of the data
networks crushing the breath out of the world, while the muffled
clatter of Aleph Omega's drums is relentless, a dubby electronic snare
occasionally cutting through the sonic haze. (Special mention too for
second guitarist Lou Minatti, who manages to look both puppyish and
cool in trapper hat, leather jacket and aviator shades)…“’TV As Eyes',
'Zombie Warfare', 'March Of The Chrome Police' and 'Chromosome Damage'
all get an airing along with the heavy trance rock of new single
'Prophecy'. It's also great to hear 'Something Rhythmic (I Can't Wait)'
– with its catchy chorus of, anthem, "I need you tied to my bedposts" –
from the excellent "lost tracks" album Half Machine From The Sun
released last year. As Creed explains from the stage, it was one of a
number of songs that Chrome considered "too commercial" to release at
the time….it's great that we now have an operational version of the
band…a band that is capable of slipping it to the android once again.”
http://thequietus.com/articles/15609-live-report-chrome
UK’s, Freq
Live Show Review June 21st, 2014
“Just as we arrive,
Chrome take to the stage. The band look young, lean and tight: second
guitarist, bass player, sample master and drummer. Both the sample
master and the drummer trigger tape loops and assorted sound effects,
and instruments are run through complex series of chains and
micro-processors. And there at the front is Helios Creed, resplendent
in an Our Man in Havana Panama hat…Creed announces that “This is a new
one” and there are no issues around inferior later material here.
Whatever it is (and unfortunately the PA doesn’t exactly lend itself to
clarity for Creed’s between-song explanations), it’s a massive sonic
cudgel with which Chrome proceed to smack us repeatedly round the head.
It feels like having your brain bashed out with the sleeve of “3rd From
the Sun” wrapped round a house brick. Clive returns, battered and
elated, and I lean over and bellow into his ear: “I could listen to
this for another four hours.”…tonight feels like a massive party of old
school London weirdos, drawn together in celebration of a band that
always felt like the ultimate expression of outsider weirdohood…The
atmosphere is really something special, something to be cherished.”
http://freq.org.uk/reviews/c
UK’s, Shindig! Magazine Editors Blog, live show review
“…Creed’s musical
muscle always was, and still is, Chrome. Lanky, slithery, spiny,
blessed with an ability to churn out monotone three-chord demi-Asheton
riffs, armed with voice effects from the dankest depths of twisted
hell, and possessed of the demeanour of a cynical Bay Area morgue
attendant. He remains the very personification of, and also the very
antithesis of rock ’n’ roll, wrapped up in one man…Guitars are attacked
(with band encouragement) by audience members with beer cans, the
assorted tribes – punk, hippie, rocker, crustie, scene-kid (80s
meaning) garage-head (both meanings) the (very) odd Mod, plus the
assorted pre-industrialists that always populate this venue – dance
like lunatics, and even Glen Matlock, crammed into a corner with the
rest of us, manages a smile. Just enough space clears to view the
onstage chaos, the wizardly bandleader’s Gibson rammed ceilingwards.
Pan-seared with white noise, and in heat which could vapourise, your
scribe is beyond caring. Like the song says, “This is the New Age”.
Always was, always will be.”
http://shindig-magazine.com/blog/index.php/tag/electrowerkz/
Helsinki,
Finland, Inferno Music Magazine Full feature review of the show Fight
the Night 2 - Nightmare City, Helsinki, 13.-14.06.2014
"We do not need video
projections and light show. Helios Creed melting and dripping face is
the most psychedelic thing that you will ever see”
http://www.inferno.fi/live/kulttiyhtye-chrome-sulatti-naaman-fight-the-night-festivaalilla/
USA’s, Black2com Blogspot, Review of bootleg live CD of Chrome playing Spain’s Prima Vera Festival
“This one rocks just
as good as if ol’ Edge was still alive and inflicting his demonic
influence on the solar mess. Hot flare in the Siren tradition as the
old faves are given new rewordings and sound just as feral as they did
back when only a few of us fanables were in on the massive push
courtesy BOMB! and a handful worthy fanzines…”
http://black2com.blogspot.com/
Germany’s,
Stage and Reptiles 5/21/14 Munich show review, mention of ‘Feel It Like
A Scientist’ and tour plug and photos of the show
“They played
‘Prophecy’ from the 2014 album ‘Feel it like A Scientist’…which do not
shrink from the comparison with the old songs.”
http://stage-reptiles.com/2014/06/09/21-5-14-chrome-im-strom-club-munchen/
Holland’s, 3Voor12 Zuid
“Chrome is an incredible live band, and they played a thundering show tonight. Whoever was not here, really missed something!”
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/lokaal/zuid-holland/nieuws/2014/Juni/Chrome-speelt-in-Rotterdam.html
Germany’s, Rockstage Riot Rhenimain
“…As an opener they
played the track "New Age" from their fourth album, which immediately
turned the concert hall into a space tunnel that led directly into
another universe CHROME played consequently only songs from the
era of 1977-82, with the exception of two songs from the upcoming album
"Feel it Like a Scientist ", but these pasted seamlessly into the set…”
http://www.rockstage-riot-rheinmain.de/chrome.html