A name these pages have become all too familiar with over the past year is Chris Natividad, lead vocalist and guitarist in the post-punk band Marbled Eye and drummer in the psychedelic dream-pop Buzz Sound Aluminum, who’ve respectively put out their own 2024 highlights between Read the Air and Fully Beat. In any capacity, Natividad rarely sounds the same twice across his projects, in turn making him a punk polyglot within the Bay Area’s steep underground. Up next? He headed into the studio as blue zero, an outlet that initially began as a solo venture, but has since evolved into a proper band alongside Lauren Melton of SUCKER and Rick Altieri of Blue Ocean. Singles have been trickling out under his own accord over the past few years, but will properly unveil blue zero in full form with the release of their debut album, colder shade blue, later this fall. Natividad played every instrument on the recorded effort himself, though on its lead single “broken by a glance”, you’d probably guess that there was a full room in the studio with him with the listen’s blown out glider grunge careening through spacewide atmospheres. There’s a palpable introversion here in blue zero’s noisier art-rock skydiving, however, sometimes fraying on the surface and other times, folding completely inward. Energy can only expand so much until it’s broken by the collapse.

Directed by: Lauren Melton

blue zero’s colder shade blue will be released October 11th on Lower Grand Tapes.