ACROMA is:
Jeremy Stanley: Vocals Brian Christensen: Guitar Tom Collins: Bass Joshua Zirbel: Drums
Slap ACROMA's Orbitals in your player. Set the volume to "stun." Push "play." Now close your eyes.
The album's opening track, "Careless Ones," swirls into view like a sandstorm on an uncharted planet. The sound is vivid, technicolor, tangible. In fact, all of ACROMA's thirteen tracks--from the cloud-scraping "Sun Rises Down" to the regal "Some Desert Night" to the frenzied "Motive"--have cinematic quality.
"I've always loved music that creates a mood and takes you somewhere," says vocalist Jeremy Stanley. "Music should pull you out of reality for a while, 'cause reality can be drag," he says with a laugh.
To achieve that effect in their own music, the band--Stanley, bassist Tom Collins, guitarist Brian Christensen and drummer Joshua Zirbel--frequently called on senses other than hearing when they wrote and arranged their songs. They would close their eyes and visualize the sound before rendering it.
"We were really into using colors to describe music when we were writing the album," recalls Jeremy. "With 'Some Desert Night,' Josh said that he got an open desert feel from the riff. I was getting the same thing from it. The chorus came to me immediately."
Ironically, one interpretation of the band's name connotes an absence of color.
"We spell our name without an 'H,' but the medical term 'achroma' means 'lack of color,'" explains bassist Tom Collins. "It's also short for 'achromatic,' the opposite of 'chromatic,' or no musical notes whatsoever."
ACROMA (pronounced uh-CROW-muh) are familiar with blank slates--and adept at filling them. They're from Salt Lake, Utah, for starters, a highly religious, conservative city that doesn't encourage its small rock music scene.
Jeremy, for one, had nearly washed his hands of music before meeting his future band mates in the late '90s.
"'Don't Think Just Move' is about dealing with depression" he admits of the poignant track's inspiration. "The band helped me come out of that. I'd given up on music. I was just jaded by the whole scene. It breaks your spirit."
"When Jeremy auditioned, we knew right away--this is it," continues Tom.
The feeling was mutual, and the band immediately started working on songs. After honing the material in the few Utah clubs that featured original music, they eventually attracted the attention of Universal Records. Soon after, they were in the studio with producer Sylvia Massy Shivy (Tool, Machines of Loving Grace, Powerman 5000), who captured the band's rich chemistry on hard drive.
"We approach the music from different perspectives," says Tom. "That's what makes our music unique. There's always a common place we meet, but we all have different influences."
A thumbnail sketch of those influences looks something like this. Tom: industrial rock and electronica. Brian: the common and uncommon ground between the Smashing Pumpkins, Jane's Addiction, The Beatles and Live. Josh: Tom Waits, industrial rock and assorted "weird stuff," according to his band mates. And Jeremy: tuneful and timeless rock and pop.
The singer also takes lyrical inspiration from what he knows best: living life as an outsider, and questioning everything. Over the majestic cadence of "Sun Rises Down," he sings, "Hey, something went wrong. I feel great." The seemingly contradictory sentiment provides an evocative starting point for a truly individual album.
"Everything came out of that lyric," he says. "The song is about not giving up and not letting people get to you---self-preservation. It's the feeling you get when you sink so low that you just don't care anymore. It's numbing, but it's also freeing in a way."
Source: http://acroma.net/bio.html
