With the
Stench
brothers on board as the rhythm section,
Chrome
veered towards creating more 'regular' rock music, if only conceptually. While still never playing live, it's easy to imagine many of the songs on
Blood
kicking out the jams live, especially since in the punk/new wave-crazy scenes of the times they would have cut a truly unique path. No matter how near to three-chord catchiness some of the numbers get, something about them always sounds just off enough.
Edge
maintains his usual mix of electronic weirdness -- at this point he had the knack for never making his keyboards sound cheap or or cheesy, a good talent -- while
Creed
is all over the place as usual, his seemingly effortless but always fantastic soloing ripping through the songs.
"Perfumed Metal"
is one fantastic example of many, with both his strong rhythm crunch and his freeform work turning everything into one powercharged feedback frenzy. Another winner is the massive solo halfway through
"The Strangers"
-- only a few seconds long, but better than most songs in their entirety. Meanwhile,
feeds his voice through effects processors and keeps on the strange lyrical path -- thus, from
"Inner Vacume,"
this couplet: "Buildings built like beaches/Dripping off the land." It's not all aliens from Mars or anything -- often it seems to just be about the strange people down the street or a bad dream -- but
do have a way of making it all sound like something not quite of this planet, musically and lyrically. The
duo do a more than fine job for their part, keeping everything almost danceable on their end on a number of songs, otherwise creating staccato, jerky rhythms and deep space when needed. Wrapping up with the nicely fried instrumental title track,
is another proper
keeper. ~ Ned Raggett