Cartel - Chroma (2025)
Cartel
Chroma (2025)
Release Date: September 12th, 2025
Label: Field Day Records
It's scaring me that I am now at the age where I can vividly remember where I was when I heard the original recordings from the bands that are now doing re-recordings of their iconic albums. I’ll admit that I was a bit taken aback when I heard that Cartel announced that they had re-recorded Chroma, an album that is now twenty years old, and a record that I found to be perfect.
To paraphrase a line from the film Finding Forrester: many aspiring bands talked about writing and recording the great 21st century album. Cartel did it on their first try. It is astounding how well Chroma has held up with the advancement of technology in the recording industry - there is a raw energy that never diminshes despite the polishes of pop-punk musings that make up the twelve songs on the Georgia band’s debut album. Astounding musicianship pours through the speakers amidst a vocal performance from Will Pugh that ranks among one of the best in the genre. To me, it felt nearly sacrilegious to touch Chroma again.
Some songs have had updates to their arrangements - an extended outro now follows the soaring “Runaway”, “Save Us” ditches some of the over-the-top orchestral arrangements on the original for a far more stripped-down acoustic offering - but the most noticeable differences are in the recordings themselves. There are moments on Chroma (2025) that are noticeably far more polished than on the original, and that is to its detriment. “Settle Down”, a bombastic and in-your-face track chronicling the downfall of the “poster perfect high school sweethearts”, feels like it's being held back from its epic potential. Certain effects - the tremolo effect that signified the intro to “Burn This City” - have been scrapped entirely. That being said, there are fewer of those moments than I had anticipated. Twenty years later, Chroma (2025) showcases exactly why this album is such a superior entry in the pop-punk genre.
The guitars and drums have more of a polished sound on Chroma (2025), which is a bit of a bummer considering how great the guitar tone on that first album sounds. I’m suspecting that amplifier simulators were used versus analog gear (however, I cannot confirm this). Regardless, that doesn’t take away from the brilliance of the songwriting and structure that first caught the attention of fans in the early 2000s when a static needle drop signified the album opener “Say Anything (Else)”. You can dress up your songs with all of the neat bells and whistles that are available on modern DAWs today, but it still comes down to how good the songs are at the end of the day. It wouldn’t matter if this were recorded under the worst of conditions - this is a genuinely talented group of songwriters, and Chroma makes that very clear.
The one thing I didn’t think could be improved upon was vocalist Will Pugh’s performance. On Chroma (2025), Pugh has managed to outdo his original vocal takes from 2005 and record versions of these songs with such excellent delivery and clarity. His voice has only gotten better with time. It is refreshing that bands like Cartel aren’t merely fads, riding the wave of pop-punk and alternative music in the early aughts only to fizzle out a brief moment of stardom. Cartel never broke through the mainstream in the way that other bands in the scene did, yet they released one of the best albums in the genre on their first attempt. It’s been fun to listen to this record through a new lens twenty years later. Whether you pick up the re-recorded version of Chroma or the original, you’re in for a great time.
