Stephen Mattos qualifies as both a noise rock veteran and guitar squall virtuoso. He's tackled a number of timbres and tones, from the guttural fuzz conjured during his days in Arab on Radar to the bee-swarm barrages of Athletic Automaton. 15 years later, Mattos unleashes his first full-length solo outing as Chrome Jackson, a comprehensive 50 minutes of the skronk that has long characterized his style.
Chrome Forest acts primarily as a retrospective of Mattos' antics, for his guitar morphs into various forms, each of which reminiscent of the contributions he's made to AoR, Athletic Automaton, and currently Doomsday Student. Though disparate sandblasts of noise pervade the album, they've all been honed to a disorienting and coarse paragon. This may not even cross one's mind, though, at its very repetitive start "Glass Fight": Mattos dwells on brief riff fragments and feeds each through pronounced looping and swirling distortion. At a perceptibly extensive 12 minutes, it tends to meander despite some flecks of deviation.
The opener's much more refined cousin would be "Shit Show", which is introduced by shards of noodling that are alloyed into hypnotic oscillations over the course of its 8 minutes. Chrome Forest is at its most terrifying in the vicinity of "Sickle"'s shroud of ghostly hiss, later tumbling downhill halfway through. The sheet-metal clusters forming "Roly Poly" are in league with the racket manifested by ex-bandmate Jeff Schneider, but it isn't an imitation. Mattos smears the loops, rendering them a blur of caustic hellfire.
"The Foam People Meet The Chrome People" is simultaneously the album's most indulgent and melodic piece. Though a 15-minute workout, it features Chrome Forest's least pervasive use of manipulation. Coexisting with harmonic drones is an excess of manic strangulation, making for a tremendously dynamic exercise and an uncompromising close to the album: its last minute features a careening melody devolving into a mutant of itself-- imagine a carousel gradually melting away. Altogether, Chrome Forest is somewhat of an exhausting listen considering its breadth, but also a heap of testament to Stephen Mattos' indubitable prowess.
[Chrome Jackson Facebook]
[Buy Chrome Forest from 5nakefork/Skin Graft Records]
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