Spectreview: Chromatics – Closer To Grey

-LIGHT CORAL-

For a guide to the review color rating system, click here.

“You say the world is raining colors
I see you standing close to grey
You say you’ll never kiss another
I see you running far away”

No one remembers Chromatics being an art-damaged post-punk band, but there was a time, way before the critical accolades and the fashion show performances and the numerous festival dates, when it was just now-bassist Adam Miller spilling his ideas onto a 4-track in a Seattle apartment. If you’ve never heard of Adam Miller, it’s because Chromatics is, at its core, a testament to the powers of vision and drive. After all, there are not many musicians working today that are quite like Johnny Jewel. As co-head of influential label Italians Do It Better and lead songwriter of multiple cult musical acts, Jewel is someone who knows exactly what he wants and pursues it with a seemingly bottomless well of confidence. In Miller, he found a partner who was willing to sacrifice his ego for the sake of a shared aesthetic. And in ex-girlfriend Ruth Radelet, he found the exemplification of that aesthetic, one that has helped lead the band to audiences with both Karl Lagerfeld and David Lynch. Radelet is the tabula rasa, and her presence, combined with her mellifluous yet purposefully imperfect voice, frames the act with a detached, vaguely druggy coolness that fits exactingly within couture and cinematic spheres. If there’s any remnant of Miller’s old intentions, it’s in this archetype, with its origins the likes of Debbie Harry and Kim Gordon, that keeps the band anchored to an underground fashionability, even as their exposure rises steadily over the years.

If “mood” is the common inspiration for music discovery today, then Chromatics may well be the ideal contemporary band. People like to make comparisons to My Bloody Valentine in how both bands prioritize the subconscious response in their art, and they’re not wrong. Chromatics records, like most records on Jewel’s label, are designed as accompaniments to larger experiences, whether they’re soundtracking the grainy Super 8 footage of their music videos, the fleet-footed shuffle of wiry models wearing expensive clothes, or the vacant afterglow of a spontaneous club-based hookup. Each are produced for maximum affectivity, soaking the listener in vinyl scratches and heavy reverb, long considered the aural equivalent of solitary night driving. Unfortunately for the audience, we have another point of comparison: the dead space between releases. Since 2012’s breakthrough double-album Kill For Love, the band has enjoyed a growing reputation, and Jewel’s been at least prolific enough to put out numerous solo albums, singles and soundtracks (the arguable finest of which, 2017’s Windswept, potentially rivals anything in his sprawling oeuvre), but over half a decade later many are still anxiously waiting for Dear Tommy, the band’s promised sixth record.

Whether you believe all those copies were indeed destroyed after a near-death experience, it’ll remain Schrödinger’s album for now, as the band is finally back with the surprise-released Closer To Grey, a record that reaffirms the chemistry that makes Chromatics such a peculiarly compelling band. While Kill For Love boasted style for days, as a standalone piece its length occasionally sank the flow, drowning the listener in one too many dirge-like ambient pieces. Closer To Grey’s highlights are not as stratospheric as that album’s best moments, but its an altogether more consistent record, and there are some surprising turns that are irresistible even on first listen. The opening cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” is sorely missing the original’s harmonies, but it successfully parallels Kill For Love’s “Into The Black” in its ominous revisiting of history while priming the listener for the band’s signature sonic sensibilities. When “You’re No Good” starts right after, it’s a genuinely pleasant surprise; it’s a certified banger with a killer melody, and marks the first time in a long time Chromatics have sounded explicitly disco. Those two songs, along with the glorious eight-minute teen movie credits-roll of “On The Wall,” are the record’s peaks, but it’s worth noting both the relative brevity of the collection, as well as the stylistic variety presented throughout. From twinkling ballads (like the vibraphone-led “Move a Mountain”) to 80’s synthy palate cleansers (“Through the Looking Glass”) to ersatz hip-hop instrumentals with vocals (“Whispers in the Hall”), Closer to Grey is fluid in a way that not only synthesizes Jewel’s numerous colors into one spectrum but potentially makes it a more active listen than other Chromatics records. That being said, it’s not too much of an active listen, and if you’re the kind of person that gave the band a chance back in 2012 and found their music to be utterly boring, a cursory glance will probably not change your mind. This is especially likely within the album’s less-compelling center, when tracks like “Touch Red,” despite its subtly intriguing elements of 90’s R&B, get a little lost in the fray.

Close listening, though, will reveal how Closer To Grey is as conceptually sound as it is sonically airtight. Like most post-Jewel Chromatics records, there’s a vague undercurrent of dispiriting ennui and romantic dissatisfaction, but the band hasn’t implied violence like they do here, in the album’s ultra-stylish cover and Radelet’s mantric, tanka-like lyrics. Perhaps Jewel learned a little something from Lynch in how to lay an unassuming foundation, but as the record feeds key phrases (both poetic and musical) back into itself, a thematic through-line starts to build that’s part classic French cinema and part ghost story. That Simon and Garfunkel cover morphs from empty tribute to nocturnal scene setter, with the band reinterpreting the song’s now-tired imagery of dim-lit streets and neon signs into a vivid piece of a greater whole. In that whole, colors drain from the scenery, people are tied to waking dreams, and the clock ticks ever long. When love dies, so too does the lover? And how much is unrequited love like a living haunting? If these are arguments to be made, they’re less important than the overall effect of these pieces and the way they draw you into its dreamscape; notice how “Love Theme from Closer To Grey” builds the album’s mythos with a cheeky reprise of “Light As A Feather, or how the album’s relinquishing closer, the haunting “Wishing Well,” brings back the ticking clock that opens the album as both a canny bookending and a reiterating of Radelet’s self-personification across “On The Wall.” Taken together it’s like a grand magic trick, but like most magic tricks, the audience needs to be on the same page, so if you’re still not keen on the somnambulant electro-rock that Jewel and Chromatics have been purveying for years, this might not do the trick. It’s enough, then, to say that Closer To Grey is simply spellbinding, and its curious structure, along with its obvious highlights, demand enough repeat listens up until the spirit has fully taken hold.

Recommended for Nyquilled nights by an open window.