The RadioActivist

Why did it take so long for me to review this album, you ask? Well, I kept waiting for the promo company to send me a lyrics sheet, but I never got one. [insert rimshot / crickets chirping awkwardly] In reality, I kept shuffling this disc to the bottom of my pile in the hopes that someone a little more qualified to review this would take up the task. I mean, I really like the Buzzcocks’ “Walking Distance” and that nice little “doo-doo-doo-doo-do-do-do-doo” secret song after the Descendents’ “Thank You.” But when it comes to instrumental music of the stoner, post-metal sludge variety, I know just about as much as your average rube plucked off the street. So if anything, you can credit this review for its genuinely unbiased (and uninformed) reflections on all things related to this release. Rather than attempting to go track-by-track describing the music of one sludgy stoner metal instrumental after another, I think this space would be more effectively spent on sweeping generalizations o...

Black Cobra? More like Black Sabbath, amirite? Black Flag, right? Black Tusk, eh? OK, so it’s not particularly fruitful to just list off Black bands that may have some similarities to what’s on Chronomega, but at least it follows a chain of logic that’s hard to ignore when listening to the album. Black Cobra isn't the name of an interracial porno, although it certainly could be. In this case, Black Cobra is a sludgy, riff-heavy Los Angeles metal band that simultaneously channels doom, stoner rock and hardcore punk on their third full-length, Chronomega. Southern Lord is a nice fit for Black Cobra in that it’s probably the label one would rationally associate with a band of this persuasion and abilities. Whether it be the influence of Paranoid-styled metal of Black Sabbath, My War sludge of Black Flag or pummeling jackhammer jams à la contemporaries Black Tusk, Chronomega shreds. From the first track, “Negative Reversal” through “Nefarian Triangle,” Black Cobra weave their grooving ...