Quando i Chrome si formano, nel 1976 per iniziativa del tastierista Damon Edge (Tom Wisse), sono una delle tante garage-band di San Francisco dedite con dieci anni di ritardo alla psichedelia dilatata, esotica e rumoristica che aveva preso piede da quelle parti. When keyboardist Damon Edge (born Tom Wisse) formed Chrome in 1976, they were one of the many San Francisco garage bands devoted to the expansive, exotic, and noise-laden psychedelia that had taken hold in that city since the hippie revolution of ten years earlier.

Visitation (Siren, 1976) is a space-rock album stuffed with late hippie ideology. On one hand the quartet indulges in horror–science-fiction atmospheres, and on the other it indulges in tribal percussion. But in the end the prevailing impression is that one has listened to a record by musicians who grew up on the albums of the Grateful Dead, Todd Rundgren, etc.

The arrival of guitarist Barry “Helios Creed” Johnson radically changed the sound. Creed made no secret of his hippie personality: he exaggerated it to the maximum. The science-fiction rock opera Alien Soundtracks (Siren, 1978), originally conceived as the soundtrack to a porn film, mainly reveals a different mood (not just a different sound): the prankish attitude of the lysergic “freaks.” Some tracks (Magnetic Dwarf Reptile) display the ambition to experiment with new musical structures recalling both Frank Zappa and kraut-rock. It is something of a swan song for Californian hippie civilization.

The group freed itself from its historical shackles on Half Machine Lip Moves (Siren, 1979 – Noiseville, 2009), an album of violent and demented music played at full volume. The guitar lashes out distorted hard-rock riffs in the style of MC5 or the Stooges, which the keyboards wrap in electronic miasmas worthy of Throbbing Gristle’s industrial music, while the rhythm section presses forward with apocalyptic neuroses à la Neu. The pieces share a fierce and venomous, yet also visionary, atmosphere. The shock wave is often frightening, traumatizing: the good-natured spirit of acid-rock has been definitively abandoned.
Dissonances gush out in torrents, convulsions, bursts—unpleasant and tempestuous. The instruments battle each other rather than pay each other homage, often with paroxysmal intensity. Discontinuity becomes an integral part of the unity of the tracks, which often resemble hurricanes of disconnected sounds rather than traditional songs. Their gait is gargantuan, apocalyptic, grotesque, in a crucible of buzzing electronic nebulae, Hendrix-style riffs of wild psychedelia, tribal percussion of occult ritual. The cosmic garage-rock of TV Eyes, Abstract Nympho, and March Of The Chrome Police is as epic as it is ungainly. That of You’ve Been Duplicated is pure shrieking noise at a frenetic pace, embodying the brutal psychological violence of industrial civilization. The barbarity and brutality of the work culminate in the hammering hysteria of Zombie Warfare, six instrumental minutes driven by epileptic riffs through a series of cascading sonic cataclysms. This hypnotic and cacophonous dance, this nervous delirium, constitutes the group’s ideal aesthetic manifesto.
The triumphant advance of the alien tribes is crowned by the heavy, tank-like, android cadence of Mondo Anthem, from which erupts a magmatic jet of sparks and intermittent radio signals under the banner of total chaos and devastation. The post-Apocalypse landscape of ruins is frescoed in Half Machine Lip Moves, a solemn chant of a monstrous humanity confined to industrial catacombs, a crowd of demented Frankenstein creatures moaning in technological-infernal circles. Even the ruined metropolises of Carpenter’s films look like earthly paradises by comparison. Chrome’s sound is one that “gets you high” through an overdose of war-noise: remote-controlled armies, armored columns, barrages of gunfire.

Edge and Creed carried those intuitions to their logical consequences on the EP Read Only Memory (Siren, 1980), using only electronics and eliminating singing and melody altogether. The EP’s two tracks are formless heaps of repellent sounds, metallic noises, galactic pulsations, bursts of static, extraterrestrial signals, loops of radio interference. I Am The Jaw sounds like a collage of recording-studio leftovers turned into a symbol of post-industrial civilization. At the same time, the absence of Creed’s infernal guitar makes the sound calmer and more serene, surreal, almost fairy-tale-like (You Can’t See Them).

Shortly afterward the duo moved to Europe and, with the singles New Age (1980) and In A Dream (1981), suddenly lost consistency, entering an era of drawing-room experimental music, disco electro-kitsch, and diluting their sonic assault with an alien dance-rhythm philosophy that dangerously recalls that of Devo. The last sinister remnants of the Chrome explosion would be Perfumed Metal, the quintessence of Chrome’s amphetamine-fueled heavy metal, and the single Anorexic Sacrifice/ Beacons To The Eye (1982).

Red Exposure (Siren, 1980) fell back on a much more trivial synth-pop, while Blood On The Moon (Siren, 1981), recorded with a traditional four-piece lineup, tried to resell their sound to the heavy-metal masses. Creed continued to refine his guitar craft, but the songs didn’t allow him great flights of imagination. The EP Inworlds (Siren, 1981) is perhaps better, containing Danger Zone, just as accessible but at least elegant. 3rd From The Sun (Siren, 1982), the last album with Creed, includes the eight-minute Armageddon.

Once Creed was gone, the volcanic source of that scorching guitar style, Chrome settled into a rearguard psychedelic rock. Into The Eyes Of The Zombie King (Mosquito, 1984) marked the transition to a danceable and contemplative gothic style halfway between dark-punk, new age, and synth-pop.

No Humans Allowed (Siren, 1982) and Raining Milk (1983) are anthologies. Chronicles (1984) and Chronicles 2 (1988) collect previously unreleased tracks, including two long improvisations, respectively Wings Born in the Night and Beacons to the Eye.

In the second half of the decade, Edge would scatter albums around Europe (five under his own name and eight under the Chrome name) without adding anything to the now static program of his sci-fi electronics.

At their best, Chrome’s sci-fi and sci-horror epics are horrendous nightmares of mechanical noises and distorted voices of unmatched sonic intensity, projecting terrifying visions of a robotic future. At their worst, they settle into a hybrid of Hawkwind-style space-rock and disco metronomy.

Chromosome Damage (1981) was a live bootleg that became an official album in 1986.

Damon Edge's Chrome continued to exist through Another World (1985), another blend of Kraftwerk and Billy Idol (Loving Lovely Lover), Dreaming in Sequence (1986), which has more of the same (emblematic the alien polka The Venusien Dance), Eternity (1986), which contains three lengthy pieces, like the 16-minute industrial dance Eternity (way too long for what it does), the EP One Million Eyes (1988), that contains three unusual pieces, notably the lo-fi, warped, tribal 14-minute Looking at You (his most "acid" trip, like Public Image Ltd covering the Grateful Dead), Alien Soundtracks II (1988), with another lengthy gothic sci-fi exploration, the 16-minute The Stars of Ours (much more abstract than Eternity), Liquid Forest (1990), an album of simpler (extremely tedious) synth-rock songs, perhaps an attempt at a commercial sellout, Mission of the Entranced (1990), which contains only two side-long compositions, We Are Not Haunted and Misson of the Entranced (both childish and wildly self-indulgent), and The Clairaudient Syndrome (1994), mainly devoted to the 42-minute sound collage Clairaudient Syndrome (that sounds like Edge simply glued together a batch of unfinished songs). These last three albums mark his lowest artistic point.

Confusingly, at the same time Damon Edge released solo albums that often featured the same band members: Alliance (1985), simply a continuation of his synth-driven dance music with gothic overtones halfway between Joy Division and the Sisters Of Mercy (I'm a Gentleman is actually better than most of what that Chrome incarnation produced, and the 13-minute Coming at La Mer to a World Left Behind is a ghostly psychedelic "trip"), The Wind Is Talking (1985), that contains the Satanic dance Exploring You and the electronic science-fiction soundscape of the 12-minute The Wind Is Talking of Planets of Seas and Sun, Grand Visions (1986), with the atmospheric litany of The Android Stroll, and the finally "human" The Surreal Rock (1987), his work that fits more closely into the "singer-songwriter" category, despite the nine-minute funky sci-fi instrumental The Sight to Sea (that sounds like Raybeats for dancefloor).

Damon Edge died in 1995 (his body was found only one month later) and Helios Creed reformed Chrome with the electronic arrangements of Tommy Cyborg and the rhythm section of John and Hilary Stench, assembled the 3-CD anthology Chrome Box (Cleopatra, 1996), and released the mini-album Third Seed From The Bud (Man's Ruin, 1996), whose blues jams Third Seed From The Bud and Old Time Fuck And Roll and especially the distorted vertigo of Monkey Shines, brought back memories of Half Machine Lip Moves. The resurgence was confirmed by Retro Transmission (Cleopatra, 1997), an impressive return to form by Creed and cohorts. The band scavenges the same cosmic junkyards that erupted in the early 1980s and its deformed machines animate Artificial Human, Phobeus, Chili Con Carnage and More Space. And, for maximum contrast, the album soars with the gothic ambient suite Mithras. Creed's galactic guitar and Chrome's crazed rhythms are reunited again.

Tidal Forces (Man's Ruin, 1998) is typical of Creed's uneven career. Dragon Slayer sounds like prime Chrome, but most tracks sound like leftovers from the previous album. The nine-minute Fudge Bunny is a decent revival of propulsive industrial-rock and the eigth-minute The Ring of Fire is a sound collage of warped electronics and guitar distortion from which a kitschy melody emerges.

Creed resumed his solo career with the single Abducted/ Leaving (Man's Ruin, 1997). Creed's new solo album, Activated Condition (Man's Ruin, 1998), is slightly better, although Frustration, Blood Mantra, Nugg The Transport and the impressive Spacefirewater exhibit Creed's frequent mistake of excessive convolution.

Musically speaking, Creed was always Chrome's better half and Chrome's, but, on the other hand, Edge was the only man capable of controlling Creed's chaotic outpour of ideas. Unchecked, Creed is as dangerous as Fidel Castro giving a speech on Cuba. Edge's departure was a mixed blessing for Chrome: it brought back Chrome's best and Chrome's worst.

Angel Of The Clouds (2001 - King Of Spades, 2014) was music left unfinished by Edge revised and arranged by Creed, including the 14-minute Take It for Me One Time. Ghost Machine (2002) spans a broad range of styles, from abstract soundscapes to synth-pop ditties, and sounds like bedroom experiments by a lonely college kid.

On the Dark Side of the Sun (2003), credited again as a solo Creed album, was a better focused effort, with 14 short pieces, with the sinister sci-fi voodoobilly of Space Sexy, the guitar rave-up of The Probe, the acid grunge-pop ballad Trailer Park Zombies, the gothic metal visions of Agoraphobia and The Machine, the savage rockabilly of The Eagle, the psychotic Butthole Surfers-esque rave-up of Cruisin' The K , the ZZ Top-esque southern boogie of Evildevilmonster, and some oddly folkish acoustic numbers like Lady Deville. This was a much better album than any Chrome-credited album in more than a decade.

Half Machine from the Sun (2013) collects Chrome rarities from 1979-80.

Feel It Like A Scientist (2014), the first album in 12 years credited to Chrome, was recorded by a completely new line-up: vocalist Anne Dromeda, guitarist Keith Thompson, drummer Aleph Omega, bassists Lux Vibratus (of Farflung) and Steve "Trash" Fishman, and keyboardist Tommy Grenas (also of Farflung). Creed was merely the producer, architecting the damage of Cyberchondria and the modernized sound of Himalayanelimination. The mini-album Techromancy (2017) had lame imitations of their classic sound (Black Diamond sounds like Zombie Warfare covered by a high-school band). and trivial sound effects (Sex Pocket Meister). Tears in Space has the best guitar solo. Both albums were hardly worth resurrecting the Chrome brand.