Track Listing

1. Kill Rhythm
2. I Confess
3. Crank
4. Broken Head
5. Pain
6. Strange Fruit
7. Chrome
8. Nude
9. Ursa Major Space Station
10. Fripp
11. Half Life
12. Show Me Mary

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #47579 in Music
• Released on: 1993-07-22
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Customer Reviews

an undiscovered classic, every household should have a copy.
This is the of those albums where you find small groups of people going ape over. From the first chord of kill rhythm, which throws you into the back of your seat with a pleasent shove, through to the last strains of the top ten single that never was, show me mary, Chorme is the type of album that takes you on a mystical tour of joy and elation. To put this album in context i would have to say that it a willing bed partner of Siamese Dream-Smashing Pumpkins. buy it, buy it.

An otherworldly classic
Mention this album to most people, even fervent music fans, and you'll find they've never heard it. Why? I think it's partly due to negative press image of the band over the years (some fair, some not) Catherine Wheel carried two negative tags throughout their career. Initially "shoegazers" on their first record (hugely underated and far superior to their contempories Ride et al in my opinion) and later Yank brown nosing hard rock sell outs. On the second charge I'd say "guilty". Proceed straight to jail. But between these two points they made their second album, the one time on record that they truly commanded a sound that was completely unique, poetic, beautiful. This is one of the greatest rock albums of all time (no, really) - but because pretty much everything they did after this was inexplicably bad (It's heartbreaking and impossible to believe that the bloated nonsense of "Happy Days" was made by the same band, just two years later) it has been completely ignored by the history books.
I urge you to forget these sad truths and buy this record. It is powerful, enigmatic, mesmerising, haunting... I can't sum it up in words. It belongs in an alternative sonic galaxy. The playing is perfect yet never overstated. The album rocks, but never sounds remotely masculine. The guitars and vocal melodies combine with Gil Norton's best ever production to create a sound that is nothing short of a trancedent experience. And better than all of this is Rob Dickinson's voice - angelic and strong, with a confidence of delivery that was lacking on Ferment but without any of the appalling histrionics of their later albums.
This is a unique, one off, wonderous rock album that doesn't really sound like a rock album at all. Oh, and "The Nude" is quite simply one of the most devastatingly beautiful love songs ever written. Period.
What a shame they lost this magic someplace.

Sublime
Dangerously close to "soft rock" at times but I still love most of this album. "Strange Fruit" , "The Nude", "Ursa Major" but most of all I love "Fripp". It's better than all the "fripperies" I've ever heard from King Crimson - it gives me the shivers; love it, love it.