After two albums on At A Loss Recordings, the former Cavity and –16-duo jump to Southern Lord Recordings for album number three, and despite the label change, Chronomega picks up exactly where Bestial and Feather and Stone left off: gritty, crumbling sludge metal with a dash of discordance that comes across like a nastier, more direct, sludgier version of Mastodon.

At 38 minutes, Chronomega is the longest of the Black Cobra albums, and quite a bit longer than the 24 minute Feather and Stone, and occasionally injects some ambient moments (“Catalyst”, “Nefarian Trinagle”) into the landslide of tumbling, earthy riffs, but for the most part, Chronomega is content to beat you with down-tuned loping grooves, atonal girth and Jason Landrian’s gruff shouts.

In truth though, if you’ve heard the last two albums, you aren’t going to be particularly enthralled by Chronomega, but neither are you going to be disappointed with the likes of “Negative Reversal”, “Machine”, and hard charging “Storm Sorrow” and “Glacies En Spiritu” which offer a simple loping beatdown and a welcome break from everything technical and avant-garde in 2009.

[Visit the band's website]

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