BLACK COBRA
Feather & Stone
(At a Loss)

GRAVE IN THE SKY
Cutlery Hits China: English
for the Hearing Impaired
(Heart & Crossbone)

GHOSTLIMB
S/T
(Self-Released)

THE PLIGHT
Black Summer
(Visible Noise)

NADJA
Radiance of Shadows
(Alien 8)

OBSTRUKTOR
Dead On Arrival 

(Self-Released)

MARBLEBOG
Forestheart

(Autopsy Kitchen)

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I remember the times when bands had to at least be comprised of four members to provide some real robust rocking sounds. Anything below that (Raven kind of sucked, Venom were funny but influential and Motorhead was the exception), just didn’t cut it. It was a sort of unwritten rule of metal; bands needed either four or five members to fit the mold and pull off the tricks of the genre. It was almost necessary, go over five and you’d be looking like Toto. For a genre so based around the guitar riff, it was not even sufficient with one guitar and a bass but a second or rhythmic player was also usually on tow to provide the perfect heavy riffing backdrop, especially noticeable at solo time. But that all kind of changed only a handful of years ago, with the arrival of the two man band (White Stripes, Big Business, etc), which for the most part ignores the need for a bassist by widening the guitar sound into a lower and deeper sound that would, for the most part with the lack of solos, cover both guitar and bass territories.  The approach makes personal relationships much easier too; especially for Black Cobra whose members don’t even live in the same city - half of which is located in Miami and half in California – but also built Feather and Stone by mail. Black Cobra are comprised by guitarist/vocalist Jason Landrian who used to play with the Torche fellas on Cavity and drummer Rafael Martinez who has played with 16 and with the West Coast stoner trio Acid King.

Black Cobra released an eponymous EP back in 2004, two years later their ear-catching full-length Bestial was unleashed by At a Loss and their latest Feather and Stone actually follows a split with Japanese heavy men Eternal Elysium. Much like Bestial, Feather and Stone shows that Black Cobra is not a band about evolution; this effort retains most of the troglodyte traits of previous recordings, and as such it retains the power, heaviness, stubbornness and the burly nature of it all. Landrian barks and spits with anger mythical lyrics about grand topics. More importantly, his guitar charged to the top with nasty sludge and thick-headed attitude is the best the band has to offer. “Five Daggers”, the opening song, is as blunt as Black Cobra gets, and considering how violent and in your face this is, I am saying much. But far from being the best cut is the busiest song of all, with Landrian incessantly singing atop chunky chords and the incessant cymbal fillings of Fernandez.

As a guitar lover, I do admit to miss guitar solos. I strongly believe that bands as metal oriented as Black Cobra could benefit of some much needed color (and I mean solos) which in all honesty would pose a problem to this band because that would leave the band with a hollow sound.  In the recording setting that’s avoidable but in a live setting it would require the addition of either a bass player or a second axeman.  On the other hand, considering how direct Black Cobra sounds, guitar solos would be a sort of distraction and would require much more than the fully enjoyable quick twenty-five minutes this eight-song recording takes to get over. 

I hesitate to call what this band does doom, mainly because the band moves for the most part at a pretty fast and dynamic pace. In the interest of tagging everything something I’d say this is stoner sludge. Some of the most enjoyable parts of Feather and Stone come late; “Dragon & Phoenix” and “Ascension” are both nearly void of vocals; and both uniquely manage to soar and traverse more expression than everything else Black Cobra does with Landrian at the mike.

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