Another fucking killer!!

SWEET! So the BurningAngel gig has paid off a bit cuz I got this album from them. Maybe a needle in a haystack, but it was worth suffering through a bunch of worthless crap to find this. These guys will be in the city in a week and a half. Figures I have zero money. C'mon unemployment people, accept my application and send me some dough, please!

Black Cobra - Bestial
At A Loss Recordings
25 April 2006
5 stars

Black Cobra is a 2 man low-end attack in the vein of Big Business only this stuff is more distorted and brutal. Think of BB running headlong into a slightly less-chaotic Pig Destroyer and then smashing the shattered remnants back into one piece. Growly yelled vocals, an avalanche of drums and what I'm guessing is a massively downtuned and bass-heavy guitar. Bestial possesses a fantastic mix of super-sludgy mid-tempo songs and tracks of faster full-on devastation. These guys know how to make the most of the heavy duo setup. There is a definite groove that runs the course of the album and along the journey you'll be privy to both the energetic highs of the blast beat and the meditative stillness of simple guitar passages. While rhythmic ingenuity is in no short supply, melodic variation--however unorthodox, and i tend to like mine that way--can also be found in abundance.

While the music on Bestial is quite stunning, an unfortunate aspect of this package is that the liner notes (at least of the version I've received) are comprised solely of a panel featuring an incredibly large arthropod and an old-timey spelunker. Sure, it's really cool artwork, but no lyrics are included (some are in Spanish, too), so I don't know what I'm being yelled at for; nevertheless I am enjoying the experience. At A Loss Recordings has also released (or is in the process of releasing) work by Baroness, Kylesa and Rwake so Black Cobra are amongst good company and from this album sound like they're perfectly able to stand on their own (four) feet in relation to these heavyweights. As of the time I'm writing this Black Cobra is touring with Torche so keep an eye out.