Chrono.naut / Nuclear Guru

I got this album from Ebay awhile ago and have just recently listened to it. This is of course the Electric Wizard that later gave us the wonderful 'Dopethrone' album, which is great, even though I haven't listened to it in a while.

Getting to Chrono Naut, Electric Wizard starts out the split with "Chrono Naut," a seventeen minute long song without any breaks like there are on the Dopethrone title track. Apparently it's broken up on the version of this with just Electric Wizard, must be for the doomy part and the tripped out part. After a few seconds, Jus breaks out with his trademark heavy as shit riffs. Jus starts doing vocals which are really great. He has this depressing, distorted, doom-instilling singing voice, which you probably already know about from Dopethrone. About six minutes into the song, it breaks into softer guitar strumming with wah and a really tripped out segment with vocals effects and some nice slow bluesy solos.

Next comes Orange Goblin's part of the split. I haven't heard any of Orange Goblin's material aside from this Split, but I think I can tell what they sound like. Orange Goblin has less of the heaviness that Electric Wizard does; it has more of a heavy Sabbath influence. Their original song, "Nuclear Guru," has some great riffs and pretty good vocals with solos and such thrown in over it. He's pretty much a standard sounding singer, different, maybe more powerful sounding that Ozzy? Not quite sure.

After that, Orange Goblin does a cover of the Black Sabbath song "Hand Of Doom," not much else to say on that.

It's a solid CD. I Haven't heard Electric Wizard's work before Dopethrone, so I can't compare it to that. But this album made me want to buy an Orange Goblin album, which I haven't done yet, but I'll get around to it.

This is a good CD overall, with both bands putting on an excellent performance, even though it only lasts for half an hour. It's not mind-shattering but it's great doom metal work. My only possible complaint is that I wish that Orange Goblin had added another original song instead of the Black Sabbath song. This may be a harder CD to find in stores, but I would definitely recommend picking it up if you are a fan of either band, or music with heavy Black Sabbath influences.