Chromatics have announced their fourth full-length, Kill For Love, out this January on Italians Do It Better. The underlying message of its title track is the jarringly plain vocals, mixed conspicuously without the fallback walls of reverb that've boxed in synth music since Chromatics' last LP in 2007. "Kill For Love" continues the band's penchant for popular-sound defiance that made Chromatics and their also-resurgent Do It Better peers Glass Candy so exciting in the first place. In my mind I was waiting for change, but the world just stays the same. Here's hoping bare vocals catch on—it just seems so honest. Maybe Kill For Love will inaugurate a sea change where artists come to terms with themselves and start being open about how they sound when they sing. In basement studios everywhere, young vocalists will blink three times and start X-ing out effects in Ableton, look at the mirror for the first time in weeks, deep into their beady, sun-deprived eyes and whisper, "God, there are no shortcuts."
