Last June, CHROMA announced they’d be opening for Foo Fighters in 2024. A whole year later, the day has almost come — the big gig is this Saturday (June 15) in Manchester (UK, not NH) — and bilingual Welsh trio is celebrating with their next single.
CHROMA premiered the video for “I Wanna Be Where You Are,” yesterday (June 12), via Alcopop! Records, continuing their celebration of Ask for Angela, the debut LP from this past fall that brought the band buzz courtesy of the BBC.
Rolling in on distorted guitar and a beating kick drum, the track is more of the high-energy strain of rock CHROMA have made a name for themselves with. Vocalist Katie Hall comes in strong with a rough-and-tumble immediacy that makes the band’s lyrical intensity palpable. “I wanna stick to you like tar,” she insists across the track, later begging “please don’t pull over” repeatedly with a growing urgency. The track deftly swells without once slowing, CHROMA giving 110 percent in every second beginning to end.
“This song is about limerence,” Hall says. “It means to be emotionally and romantically infatuated with someone. It’s like when you have an intense crush on someone who’s not good for you. It’s not necessarily because they’re a bad person, it’s because you’re in a bad place so you try to mask your problems with love. In an age of modern technology, love and dating seems disposable. …I think it’s something a lot of people go through.”
The video features a patchwork of clips, from the glossy professional footage of the band in bars and abandoned buildings to grainy video of living room performances and dart matches. It’s a celebration of Wales’ industrial town of Port Talbot, inspired by a date Hall had in the area.
“On the date [of the shoot], we chatted a lot about the steelworks closing,” Hall says. “It’s an estimated 20,000 jobs in the area. It’s hard to think of the pressure this puts families under during a cost of living crisis. I think Port Talbot is lush, the people and the place.”
While CHROMA have made big enough waves to rub elbows with the likes of Goldie Lookin Chain, The Mysterines (who we love), and of course Foo Fighters, the closest they’ve been of late to Boston was a SXSW appearance in Texas last year.
While we wait to be where they are, the “I Wanna Be Where You Are” video can tide us over.