Those of us who have been hanging around the Cardiff music scene for the last decade or so are very well aware of who Chroma are and what they stand for. What’s more surprising is to learn that their latest offering, 25 Forever, is only their second LP. After such a long time of having a de facto residency of the Womanby Street pubs and clwb’s, the band are finally finding a foothold in the national picture.
Their first album, 2024’s Ask for Angela, saw them nominated for the Welsh Music Prize and landed a support slot with Foo Fighters- not bad for a Pontypridd trio who’ve been honing their craft for a long old time. Although slated for a 2020 release, the pandemic caused a delay, but the result was magnificent; after several recordings and re-recordings the experience served as the perfect platform from which to launch their music careers.
25 Forever is a much more introspective effort from the group. Where Ask For Angela tackled issues with the politics and culture of the wider world, 25 Forever turns inwards. “In the lyrics for the title track, I imagine meeting up with a friend that’s fallen out with everyone, and offering an olive branch,” explains KT Hall, Chroma’s lead singer. “I can’t help myself. I’d lost a close friend when we were 25. A grief like that teaches you that when life gets tough, you need to remember that it’s precious. The songs on 25 Forever reflect on the lessons you learn in your 20s; remembering that hard times will pass, but knowing those life lessons stay with you forever.”
As well as that title track, ‘Coalminers Daughter’ serves up a very personal experience of living in the Valleys and at the same time captures something all of us Valley-folk would recognise as a universal truth: “There’s nothing like a funeral in the Valleys / It really brings the family together”. That familiar Welsh deadpan and self-deprecating humour permeates the entire LP and embellishes it with a unique flavour.
The influence of Dave Grohl and other Grohl-adjacent projects is blended in amongst the Cymru-punk attitude. Openers ‘What!’ and ‘Riverhouse’ draw from the well of Foo Fighters with big rock energy and sumptuous riffs. Drummer Zac Mather, throughout the first side of the album, displays a knack for Queens Of The Stone Age-esque drum fills that will make your average rock fan flick their long and greasy hair. For fans of the tune No One Knows, see Chroma.
On ‘Straight Men’, the group make a welcome return to addressing the experience of women in the modern world and, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, it is not a pleasant one. “Tell that Stone Island cunt to get fucked”, Hall shrieks in an accent the strength of which has a direct correlation with anger. The contrast between introspection and societal voyeurism plays a huge part in making this skater punk/grunge/emo album even greater than the sum of its musical parts. The band deserve credit for the way they navigate the relationship between the personal and the cultural.
Final track ‘It’s Stupid’ slides the emo influences back from the noughties to the American Midwest in the 90s with a much slower and softer approach, although that personal touch remains. Never mind her lyrical content, Hall’s vocal range is impressive throughout; she’d have a home at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama just as much as she would in a punk band. The album has emotional depth, musical range and furiously Welsh. An impressive second outing for the promising Chroma.
Catch the band on tour this April and on the festival circuit beginning in May: https://www.chroma.band/tour-dates
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