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Black Cobra: Invernal

Black Cobra's music falls under the rubric of sludge metal, and the aptly titled Invernal is their fourth full-length release.

While sludge metal is prototypically slow, heavy and lumbering and rich in blues-based southern rock elements as well as influences from 70s heavy rock and dark psychedelia, Black Cobra's Invernal has been injected with a considerable dose of aggression, as Black cobra combine the crushingly heavy sound of sludge metal, attributed to downtuned and heavily distorted bass and guitars, with the tempos of thrash metal, and even some of the brutal riffing of early and primitive death metal.

And this combination works quite well. The sludgy sound and uptempo aggressive beats and riffage amount to a very intense and chaotic sound which suits the tunes on the album extremely well. There are, of course, the obligatory heavy passages every now and then, but this album is by far dominated by brutal aggression.

If you like both sludge metal and thrash metal, you should love this release, which, dirty, aggressive and sludgy as it is, should also appeal to fans of the likes of Down, Superjoint Ritual, Dead in the Dirt, and Elitist.


Track list:
1. Avalanche
2. Somnae Tenebrae
3. Corrosion Fields
4. The Crimson Blade
5. Beyond
6. Erebus Dawn
7. Abyss
8. Obliteration

Added: November 1st 2011
Reviewer: Kim Jensen
Score:
Related Link: Black Cobra official website
Hits: 2739
Language: english

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» SoT Staff Roundtable Reviews:

Black Cobra: Invernal
Posted by Pete Pardo, SoT Staff Writer on 2011-11-01 09:49:41
My Score:

Invernal, the latest from Black Cobra, once again sees the band create some solid sludge, hardcore, thrash, doom, and death metal mayhem, as they look to try and take things to a new level.

Plenty of crushing riffage here and pummeling aggression, especially on cuts like "Somnae Tenebrae", the Crowbar inspired "Corrosion Fields", and the Black Sabbath meets Celtic Frost corker "Beyond". The band even speeds things up a bit on the thrashy "Erebus Dawn", as raging riffs and crashing drum fills permeate the mix, offering up a bit more variety than what is on display elsewhere. That's the main problem here-most of the tunes are competent and fairly enjoyable, but there's a 'sameness' to most of them, especially from the vocals, that almost makes one song indistinguishable from the next. And though the riffs are heavy, we've certainly heard them before, and heavier, from many other sludge or doom acts in recent years.

Invernal is not a bad album by any means, in fact, I dare any doom or sludge fan to not get all fired up over a bombastic slice of crushing metal that is "Abyss", but there's just not enough here to get overly excited about, especially when there have been so many other strong releases within the genre in recent years.



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