If there's any way to drive the nails into the coffin of a musical trend and bury it deep, deep below the ground, it's to add electronic elements to it. I'm not a fan of artificial elements to established genres, and I don't think that most attempts to do it in the past have had a great deal of merit. Adding drum machines and the like to conventional rock music made with real instruments tends to either make the music sound gimmicky and tacky, or slim and unsubstantial. Motormark, as you may have surmised, are a band who have decided to add elements of electronica to a trendy fad, in this case, garage rock, and the result is as mediocre as you might expect.

The number one problem with "Chrome Tape", and the reason why the album doesn't have any chance of success, is the absolutely shocking drum programming. It seems like the band are somehow unaware that they can program multiple beats into the same unit, or at the very least, vary them between different tracks. With the exception of some slight speed and tempo changes, every single song presented on this album has exactly the same beat, and a very basic and uninspired beat at that.

However, just picking on the laughably incompetent drum programming wouldn't do justice to this album. The guitarwork here also leaves quite a bit to be desired, although it isn't nearly as offensive as the percussive elements of the music. A few riffs here, a smattering of chords there - it's adequate, but it really doesn't do anything interesting, or drive the music ahead like it probably should. The vocals, as contributed by bandmembers Jane and Marco are probably the best ingredient here, and although they're not going to be winning any awards for clarity or tone in the near future, they do a good enough job at shouting over the racket that they create.

The actual songwriting on display here is a bit thin on the ground too. Yelling the same line over and over again does not make a good song, even by the standards of the garage genre. The lyric "I'm about to do something I'm gonna regret" is actually repeated over thirty times in one song. I get the feeling that if the band actually took some of these ideas and put a whole bunch of them in a few songs, rather than making each one stretch out to a tune on its own, the material here would be a lot stronger. The slower songs towards the end of the album, like Flow Chart are considerably stronger than the rest of the album, and the less breakneck pace allows Jane to actually sing, and reveal that her voice is actually surprisingly good, and probably wasted just screaming out slogans over a barrage of noise.

There's DIY, and then there are bands that should just put their guitars down and get boring white-collar jobs. That said, I can't be too vicious towards Motormark, because at least they're obviously making the music that they want to make, without having to compromise their vision. However, prospective listeners should be warned that their vision includes the same infernal beat, repeated over and over, until you just want to throw their drum machine out of a window.