3rd From The Sun

Sound DNA

• Electronic
• Industrial

• abrasive
• menacing
• desert

About

With 1982’s <i>3rd from the Sun</i>, the pioneering San Francisco industrial band Chrome had perfected a leveled balance of palatable (yet twisted) garage rock and a mechanized ambience of innovative psychedelia. With its catchy guitar riffs, lead bass grooves, and steady beat, the opening song, “Firebomb,” is nearly danceable, save for Damon Edge’s yawning, deep vocal performance. The hissed, high-register singing in the following “Future Ghosts” plays like a template for the sinister vocal style that Al Jourgensen would appropriate for his late-'80s Ministry recordings. At more than eight and a half minutes, “Armageddon” is a standout epic of smoldering rock that braids the wires of industrial textures with brooding doom metal. “Heartbeat” overlaps distorted keyboards with guitar feedback and speaker-blasting oscillators, over which Helios Creed spits out his vocals parts with a serpentine performance. A rhythmic funeral march, vintage sci-fi Theremin, and ghostly backing vocals all contribute to the dirge that is “Off the Line,” sounding tailored to bait the then-burgeoning goth subculture.

via Apple Music

Tracklist

Credits