Chrome Hoof
BIO
Started in earnest in 2000 by brothers Milo and Leo Smee (of veteran mid-90s metallers Cathedral), Chrome Hoof initially performed as a duo, playing electronic sets, but the beast soon grew legs, wings, and many less identifiable appendages as the band mutated into a ten+ congress of theatrics-loving musical freaks with a taste for the esoteric. Fortunately their logic-defyingly diverse range of tastes – Leo’s retro doom-metal roots and Milo’s background in acid house and disco – formulated the kind of infinitemonkeysinfinitetypewriters scenario that should really only be accidentally generated by Douglas Adams’ Improbability Drive.
What eventually came out of the tangled mess of bassoons, violins, trumpets, guitars, keyboards and percussion was a frothing, shifting 10+piece glam-clad death-disco prog-doom outfit that put the very concept of genre to bed with a sore head and a case of tinnitus. A growing word-of-mouth/Chinese whispers buzz hummed around the band’s unhinged circus of live shows.
On stage, the band dress in silver-sequined cowls - like a group of glam-rock monks come to herald the end of all rationality – and are accompanied by a seven-foot metallic ram that shoots lasers out of its eyes. On record, things aren’t all that much more compos mentis, their 2007 album Pre-Emptive False Rapture was the culmination of years of experimentation and a number of EP releases, binding itself together in a mess of frantic synths, shifting time signatures and song structures that seem to follow a pattern created by the Higgs Boson generator. It featured songs like Pronoid, a cosmic math-disco mess that Battles and !!! could only spy with a glitter-lined kaleidoscopic periscope and Moss Covered Obelisk, a slow brewer that summons images of giant metallic lizards and soul-eating wizards battling in the light-sucking emptiness of space.
The band have a new album coming out called Crush Depth and will be debuting it at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on April 22nd alongside a 10 piece choir and a harpist as part of the Southband music festival (with support slots from LA noise band Health and Zun Zun Egui). It’s not out till May, so we’ll have to trust their label (Southern records) when they say “it variously sounds like the soundtrack to a lost episode of Blake’s Seven, the best disco Grace Jones never performed at, the inside of a Black Hole, and The Apocalypse.” If that in no way helps you in imagining how the band sound, then you should probably take us up on this free download.
Chrome Hoof - Crystalline by LukeSlater
TOUR DATES
4 APRIL 2010 - ELECTRON FESTIVAL GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
22 APRIL 2010 - QUEEN ELIZABETH HALL LONDON
2 May 2010 - ISLINGTON MILL SALFORD, Northwest
21 May 2010 - THE THEKLA BRISTOL
22 May 2010 - AUDIO BRIGHTON
27 May 2010 - PRIMAVERA SOUND 2010 BARCELONA, SPAIN
29 May 2010 - BRUDENELL SOCIAL CLUB LEEDS
30 May 2010 - OPTIMO GLASGOW
5 June 2010 - CASA DA MUSICA PORTO, PORTUGAL
16 July 2010 - DOUR FESTIVAL DOUR, BELGIUM
18 July 2010 - GLADE FESTIVAL WINCHESTER
20 July 2010 - BOOMTOWN GENT, BELGIUM
8 August 2010 - OFF FESTIVAL MYSLOWICE, POLAND
10 September 2010 - BESTIVAL 2010 ISLE OF WHITE
11 September 2010 - SKAŅU MEŻS FESTIVAL RIGA, LATVIA
VIDEOS
Chrome Hoof – Crystalline
Chrome Hoof – Moss Covered Obelisk (BBC Introducing)
words and thoughts by Samuel Smith