One can, as many have, contest the geographic point of metal's origin: San Francisco-based Blue Cheer did a version of "Summertime Blues" that plenty cite as the first metal recording; just as many others mark heavy metal's anniversary with the debut of Birmingham, England's Black Sabbath. What's less a point of contention is the geographic influence, specifically American blues music: Both the aforementioned bands slowed down those bluesy chords and cranked the volume. But heavy metal's early progression quickly became a decidedly European affair, with punk and classical influences finding favor over the blues. Broadly generalized, contemporary European metal bends more toward the technically progressive side than its American counterpart. (They also like a lot of cheesy power metal.)
On the popular metal blog Invisible Oranges, Cosmo Lee addresses the whole European vs. American metal dichotomy in a series of posts. He attributes Europe's stronger affinity for epic over-the-top-ness to their deeper history. That seems at least sort of right, considering that the classical music and battles-of-yore that serve as influence and song fodder mostly took place there, but that explanation doesn't really answer why Americans tend to find such stuff corny but Europeans don't. Same goes for Euro-dance, whose compositions are far less sophisticated on paper. But Lee is right about this: "Americans are too busy grinding on one note and cursing their lack of health care." He's talking about sludge metal, which is about as American as metal gets. Unless the musicians also happen to be uninsured — in that case, it's even more uniquely American.
Many types of metal can be sludgy, and as a nation we've sludged up pretty much every imaginable sub-genre there is. Unlike, say, doom or thrash, sludge is less a sub-genre than a property. If one were forced to make another broad generalization and choose one band that best represents contemporary American metal, one could come up with much worse candidates than Los Angeles-based duo Black Cobra.
Sure, they're West Coasters, but their sound isn't far removed from the Southern metal that has come to epitomize sludge. Blue Cheer and Black Sabbath are still the dominant and prevailing influences on Southern metal, which is to say that a lot of this uniquely American metal stuff is pretty retro. We've nudged the genre closer to its bluesy roots, and Black Cobra's riffs aren't a huge leap from what you find in those old standards — a leap, sure, but not a huge one. But Black Cobra's most defining feature is, without a doubt, sludge.
Do the Europeans find that corny?
Maybe, maybe not — but if they do, American metalheads don't seem to agree. For Black Cobra's third full-length, the duo have graduated to Southern Lord Records, making Chronomega their biggest release to date. Production-wise, there's a classic-rock crispness to the mix that lifts the songs out of the bog that sank parts of their last album, Feathers and Stones. But the songs themselves weren't all that much to get excited about either. After an inspired debut, the combo's sophomore release sounded phoned-in, which can be a problem with this sludgy stuff. Sometimes the focus on getting the grimiest sound distracts from things like writing awesome riffs.
They've got those this time — nothing elaborate or technical, just to-the-point pummeling that digs in with little effort. The title track twists around a simple, melodic figure that largely pounds on a single root note. Guitarist/vocalist Jason Landrian barks underneath the fray before hitting a groove in maybe the one big chorus they've ever written. Tracks like "Negative Approach" and "Zero Point Field" feature similarly serpentine riffs, but by the end of the nine-song collection things do start to feel a bit same-y. Still, it's their most accessible set of songs to date, making Chronomega Black Cobra's answer to Queens of the Stone Age. Just sludgier, of course.
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