Year of the Cobra – Burn Your Dead
Label: STB Records/Magnetic Eye Records
Release Date: 27th October
Year of the Cobra deliver one of the year’s most headbangingly exciting EP’s in the shape of Burn Your Dead, and like the bands namesake this is an album that bites down hard and doesn’t let go until it’s injected all of its mind bending hooks and infectious groove. Despite being formed just two years ago, and with as many members, Seattle’s Year of the Cobra already have a number of EPs and an album under their rapidly expanding belt.
Kicking off with a distorted, fuzzy and enormously heavy riff, opener Cold sets the tone of the EP. Fliting between that same repetitive, yet never boring, hook and ethereal vocals the track evokes being caught within a raging snowstorm with no way out. Similar in form The Descent features more heavy, fuzzy hooks, contrasted with the soft floating vocals we’ve become familiar with. Eponymous middle track is the first instant of Year of the Cobra truly baring their fangs. A rip-roaring frenzy, the track features a rock ‘n roll hook played with such distortion and ferocity that it resonates within, impossible not to get that head nodding. The vocals also change their tune, their fevered yells vastly unlike what we have already heard. The Howl and closer And They Sang… are much like we have heard before, with the prior featuring the acquainted eeire vocals over unrelenting distortion whilst the latter is another ferocious adventure into sonic bombardment presenting an amalgamation of all the tracks on this EP.
With it’s grimy, distortion, floating vocals and aggressive yet groove infused songwriting Burn your Dead is a colossal effort from a band who are already off to a very good start with their career
Favourite Track: Burn Your Dead
Score: 7/10
Facebook: www.facebook.com/yearofthecobraband
Bandcamp: yearofthecobra.bandcamp.com/album/burn-your-dead