Half Machine Lip Moves
1979 studio album by Chrome
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Half Machine Lip Moves is the third studio album by American rock band Chrome. It was released on March 15, 1979 by Siren Records.
| Half Machine Lip Moves | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | March 15, 1979 | |||
| Studio | Alamar (San Francisco, California) | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 35:55 | |||
| Label | Siren | |||
| Producer | Damon Edge | |||
| Chrome chronology | ||||
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The album has been reissued several times on different labels: by Beggars Banquet Records in the United Kingdom in 1980, by Expanded Music in Italy in 1981, by Dossier Records in Germany in 1988, by Touch and Go Records in the United States in 1990, and by Cleopatra Records in the US in 2007 and 2012.
Music
The creation of Half Machine Lip Moves was helmed by Chrome members Damon Edge and Helios Creed. AllMusic describes the album's basic elements as "aggressive but cryptic performance and production, jump cuts between and in songs, judicious use of sampling and production craziness, and an overall air of looming science fiction apocalypse and doom."[1] It was described as post-punk by music writer Simon Reynolds.[2] NME journalist Andy Gill wrote that the album departed from earlier Chrome albums by featuring excessive use of "disconcerting sound-collage washes and interjections", as well as frequent "vocal fragmentation", with "very few cases of the one track/one riff syndrome" to be found on the songs.[3] It was cited as the "beginning of industrial rock".[4]
Reception
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [1] |
| The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [5] |
| Record Collector | [6] |
British magazine The Wire included Half Machine Lip Moves on its list of "100 (130) Records That Set the World on Fire (While No One Was Listening)".[7] In 2013, The New York Times wrote that "one of the things that makes the record so good is how intriguing the grooves and pockets and riffs are, how close the music theoretically seems to be getting to something more universally appealing—David Bowie's sound at that moment, for example."[8]
Track listing
| No. | Title | Lyrics | Music | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "T.V. as Eyes" | Helios Creed | Damon Edge, Gary Spain | 2:19 |
| 2. | "Zombie Warfare (Can't Let You Down)" | Edge | Creed, Edge | 5:47 |
| 3. | "March of the Chrome Police (A Cold Clamey Bombing)" | Edge | Edge | 3:38 |
| 4. | "You've Been Duplicated" | Edge | Creed, Edge | 2:38 |
| 5. | "Mondo Anthem" | Creed, Edge | Edge, Spain | 3:33 |
| No. | Title | Lyrics | Music | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Half Machine Lip Moves" | Creed, Edge | Creed, Edge | 5:21 |
| 2. | "Abstract Nympho" | Creed, Edge | Creed, Edge | 3:35 |
| 3. | "Turned Around" | Creed | Creed, Edge | 2:01 |
| 4. | "Zero Time" | Creed | Creed, Edge | 3:04 |
| 5. | "Creature Eternal" | Creed, Edge | Creed, Edge | 1:53 |
| 6. | "Critical Mass" | Edge | Creed, Edge | 2:00 |
Personnel
- Chrome
- Helios Creed – lead vocals, rhythm and lead guitar, bass guitar, bells, bowed guitar
- Damon Edge – lead vocals, keyboard guitar, organ, synthesizer, Moog synthesizer, percussion, drums, rhythm guitar ("Turned Around"), tape operation, production, engineering, art direction, sleeve photography
- Additional personnel
- Gary Spain – bass guitar ("T.V. as Eyes", "Mondo Anthem")
- Technical
- John L. Cyborg – electronics
- Bernie Grundman – mastering
- Amy James – sleeve photography, cover design