Black Cobra

Chronomega

Ready to strike | Southern Lord

“These songs sound so much better live.” It’s a popular refrain among big-city scenesters who take their incredible accessibility to top-flight live shows for granted. It’s all well and good that you can catch the coolest sludge bands playing in a tiny, off-the-beaten-path room where the sound pulverizes attendees into submission, but what about the kids across the rest of the country, the ones whose only metal experience of the summer is an hours-long road trip to Mayhem Fest? No matter how strong a band’s live reputation is, if that potent sound isn’t captured properly on record, it’s all ultimately a pointless exercise.

Take Black Cobra, for instance. On 2006’s Bestial, despite its undeniable, Pavement-like, assembled-by-mail charm, it was clear that guitarist Jason Landrian and drummer Rafael Martinez would have to gel more on record. Last year’s throttling Feather and Stone was a good step in the right direction, but it’s on their third full-length where they truly get it right. And who better to produce a bass-less sludge band than Billy Anderson, who strips the duo of the hardcore that tinged their early work and transforms Black Cobra into an entity as gargantuan as High on Fire and the Melvins. An epic mindset gradually creeps in, the sprawling “Catalyst,” “Lightning in His Hand” and “Nefarian Triangle” offsetting the more direct assault of tracks like “Storm Shadow” and “Negative Reversal.” Yeah, these songs will absolutely kill live, but if you can’t catch the band on tour, at least you have this record.

—Adrien Begrand

Username

Password

Forgot password

Register new account