‘Cobra Juicy’ pales in comparison to rainbow of better albums

I was shaking with anticipation when I clicked buy on “Cobra Juicy”, the newest release from Pittsburgh based Black Moth Super Rainbow.  The 10 second clips offered by the iTunes store teased my ears with the same synth-driven, base-heavy indie electro that have made BMSR a mainstay on my playlist rotations.

But after a month of going back through the rest of my catalog of BMSR albums, I’m left disappointed comparing Cobra Juicy against their previous work.  It’s like on past albums the band dropped acid, but in recording this album decided to huff glue instead.   Cobra Juicy is less “Alan Parsons Project meets Clockwork Orange Soundtrack,” and more “Crapfest Disco meets Cockrock.”

The first thing that sticks out is the movement away from the more sentimental, moody lyrics that attracted me to their previous records.  Instead they defaulted on ballads and pop laden hooks that feel forced and insincere.

Another major downer was that the use of vocodor was scaled back considerably, leaving the vocals sounding more auto-tuned than Krautrock.  “Gangs in the Garden” is the only exception, and it’s about the only track that I really enjoyed off this record, despite it being a bit disco tinged in the vein of MSTRKRFT or Boys Noize.

The layered walls of sound that I was accustomed to are seriously lacking on this album.  Three Tracks; “Windshield Smasher,” “I Think I’m Evil” and “Hairspray Heart,” are little more than fuzzed power chords, and the percussion on these tracks (and throughout the whole album for that matter), feels like it doesn’t pack nearly enough punch.  When you pit Cobra Juicy against their second album, “Start a People,” it sounds more like polished arena rock than Bruce Haack worship.

The synthesizer work was also a huge let down.  The synth solos on “Like a Sundae” ruin the albums potentially best track by setting the decay too short, and the attack too long.  It’s not just the solos though, the delay and sustain are left too high on the backing synths as well.  On “Spraypaint, “Dreamsicle Bomb,” and “The Healing Power of Nothing,” it ends up drowning out the rest of the texture.

A lot of other BMSR sounds that I’ve grown accustomed to, such as the extensive use of the Mellotron on their 2007 release, “Dandelion Gum,” are completely absent from this album.  One of the only returning elements was the employment of acoustic guitar loops on “We Burn”, but even that fell short of my expectations by sounding too clean, and almost like it was out of tune.

Do yourself a favor if you’re looking to get into Black Moth Super Rainbow: pick up the first 4 albums, and leave Cobra Juicy to rot in the bargain bin.