Chronophage: A Sedate Sort Of Black-Metal Band

It's a well-known fact that most band names are essentially gobbledygook, but here at Rocks Off we're trying hard to find the meaning in some of the odder monikers.

​We know of Kenny Khaos and his band Cronophage through the orifices of Justin Whitney and his band Church ov Melkarth. Cronophage is black metallic punk, but is surprisingly accessible... at least if you used to worship the devil like we did.

Cronophage avoids many of black metal's more eye-rolling clichés, and instead comes across as a very sedate group of psychopaths, corpse desecrators and livestock mutilators. We're saying they'll eat your soul, but not in front of your kids because that would be mean.

But that name... what the hell does "Cronophage" mean? Well, it means time-eater as anyone with a smidgen of Latin or a spoonful too much time in fetish clubs could probably figure out, but that doesn't really shed any light on the subject.

Rocks Off decided to do a little research before delving into the mind of Kenny Khaos, or rather to put off doing so as long as possible because, apparently, he's a lunatic. We were initially hesitant because the last time we did research for a band name, we ended up in a book of ball-shrinkingly horrible Native American black magic.

Well, into the breach...

Turns out that a Chronopage - note the spelling - is the name of a sinister mechanical locust that rests upon the Corpus Clock at Corpus Christi College in England. Unveiled in 2008, the unsettling timepiece strikes the hour using chains in a small wooden coffin. It is also only correct at a random time every five minutes, speeding up or slowing down in an effort to illustrate the irregularity of life.

The Chronopage, affectionately called Hopsy by students unaware of how incredibly fucking creepy it is, mechanically swallows each second that passes, and occasionally blinks in satisfaction. That's right, someone made a golden clock that is bad at telling time while simultaneously acting smug about the seconds of your life you just lost while watching the damn thing.

Ain't art neat?

Cronophage is obviously knowledgeable about the Corpus Clock, since their Myspace page includes a demo called "Crushing the Corpus Clock," but maybe it's just a coincidence. We laid in wait for the band, painting ourselves meticulously to blend in with some sort of Satanic tapestry they'd hung in their practice space, and demanded to know the origin of their name.

"The idea started with nuclear fusion which led to the sun, truly the ultimate time-eater," says Khaos. "The name comes from the Greek. 'Chronos' means..."

"Yeah yeah yeah," we interrupted. "We know what it means, but what does it mean?"