Law of Ruins is definitely one of my favorite albums ever. Interesting.

Well if it makes you feel better, I did give them a go on several occasions. I hope this wont be one extra reason that will appear on your suicide letter, if what you wrote on that other thread turns out to be true.

Touch and Go did a cd of Half Machine and Alien Soundtracks together. Easily their two best albums, so well worth grabbing if found. Half Machine was definitely one of the first wave of life changing albums for me in the mid '80s along with Bad Moon Rising and Gone Fishin' by Flipper. "TV As Eyes" is such a cool update of the Stooges song with appropriate Reagan era paranoia-psych thrown in. A shame Creed and Edge had the falling out that led to each of them taking the Chrome name to places that don't measure in the slightest to where they went together.

I googled around to see if anyone else on the net mentioned Chrome and Gary Numan in the same breath, and sure enough, I found this:

"Chrome worked from a similar Weltanschauung to Gary Numan's Tubeway Army days -- future horror bio-techno nightmare machine sex robot genocide sci-fi mind control corporate cult ecstacy doom atrocity exhibition Philip K.Dick William S. Burroughs Theodore Sturgeon Clockwork Orange Brave New World ad nauseum -- but musically they spelled it out in a much hollower-sounding, processed guitar-laden, fuzz-mired lower-fi way, which only adds to the sinisteria of it -- like receiving radio broadcasts from that same horrorshow future through an old, cracked, not particularly reliable radio. Tubeway Army meets Hawkind circa "Space Ritual" meets Simply Saucer meets "Hotwire My Heart"-era Crime. But entirely original and their own all the same"

And someone else is quoted as saying: "I was a big fan of Tubeway Army (Gary Numan) at the time,which is a good reference point,but Chrome were like their cooler,weirder,older brothers".

OK, you've caught me out there I guess. Admittedly, the only Gary Numan I know, and thus the reference point I was using, is Cars.

It's amazing to think a bunch of guys in San Francisco, California, had roughly the same ideas for a sound and were highly influenced by stuff to that of a guy in Hammersmith, London. :)

Well I don't know about influenced, considering they released their debuts in the same year. If Gary's early stuff does have the same sound though then that would be a remarkable coincidence.

Numan is much more clinical and reserved in his approach...Edge and Creed were way more visceral, and got to that turf a few years before Numan did anyway.

According to Chrome's Wikipedia entry, they were inspired by mid-70s punk rock, Hawkwind and Black Sabbath. One could pedantically argue Hawkwind beat them to it by seven years.

i can't say that i'm too familiar w/ Hawkwind's stuff (yeah, I've heard "silver machine" a billion times but not much else), but to my ears Chrome is a lot edgier than anything Hawkwind did.

mid-70s punk rock eh? wiki needs to get better editors.

Wikipedia does have a habit of misleading people.

I hadnt heard the record in years since hearing that the butthole surfers looked to them as idols. No im remembering all the craziness and i like the taste! This record really is right up the alley for any SY fan, it should just be a given that everyone here knows them.

That's all fine and dandy, but the Chrome records I was referring to still don't sound like Gary Numan.

z-z-Z-Z-ZZZZOMBIES!

Just listened to my entire Chrome collection this week. Gotta love them. I was playing Plants vs. Zombies while listening to them and it was the most suitable

thre isnt one chroe or helios record i dont like/love, wierd ass space punk with actually amazing musicianship for the most part, a rarity. one of my long tme favorit bands.