10 Forgotten Punk Albums You Need To Redisover

While most of California channelled the sun and surf into soft, radio friendly rock, San Francisco band Chrome were making something altogether more sinister and seminal. The influential and underrated act, here comprising kindred spirits Helios Creed and Damon Edge, released Half Machine Lip Moves in 1979, and it’s as difficult to know what to make of it now as it was then.

It’s a record that purposefully defies categorisation, but there are industrial sounds alongside spacey themes and a piercing electronic ominous edge. Opener “TV As Eyes” leaves you on reasonably sure footing, a garage-leaning stomp with a lo-fi style.

Then, it gets weird. “March Of The Chrome Police” is a song which starts off a rocker but eventually falls in on itself. The title track utilises a disconcertingly slow phaser, a wobbly bass, and an insistent cymbal chime to make something hugely weird but strangely danceable.

Then there’s the closer, “Critical Mass”, by which point the lyrics are indecipherable, but the music embraces a strange industrial funk swing. It’s oblique and challenging music, but they were most certainly onto something.