Cobra Cult – Don’t Kill The Dark
GMR Music
Release Date: 09/12/22
Running Time: 30:00
Review by Laura Barnes
7.5/10
Before beginning this review in earnest, let’s talk about Hard Rock for a second. Hard rock is late night driving, windows down, street lights bright. Hard rock is singing till your throat hurts after a hard day’s work. Hard Rock is pure, fist-pumping freedom.
Cobra Cult are a four-piece Hard Rock band from Stockholm, Sweden, and this is the feeling they strive to invoke with their sophomore album, “Don’t Kill The Dark”. For the most part, they succeed. The 1970s and 1980s Rock and Punk sounds that inspire Cobra Cult are the lifeblood of this album. This clear love and respect for their influences ensures that Cobra Cult have a strong grasp of who they are very early on in their career. They are confident in their sound, and as a result “Don’t Kill The Dark” is an album you can headbang along to from start to finish. If you’re a fan of bands like Grim Reaper, Diamond Head, Girlschool or Saxon, then “Don’t Kill The Dark” is the album you should put on your Christmas list this year.
Cobra Cult waste absolutely no time as they kick off the album with some killer Iron Maiden-style riffage on opening track ‘Late Night Adventure’, a super fun song that grabs the listener’s attention before leading them into the much more intense, much more personal follow-up track, ‘The Beast’. This song is one of the best on the album, with an anthemic chorus that makes you want to unleash your own inner beast. Cobra Cult later reach their peak during ‘Don’t Kill The Dark’, and it is easy to see why the band decided to name their album after this track. ‘Don’t Kill The Dark’ contains within it everything that is good about classic metal. It begins with a doomy, atmospheric guitarwork before exploding into a dark and ferocious party. As a bonus, this song contains one of the most quintessential rock lyrics I have ever heard, such as ‘Don’t kill the dark / You need the dark to see the light’. Another highlight includes ‘Her Majesty’, which closes out the album, and Cobra Cult go out exactly how they came in: with immense fucking riffage.
With Cobra Cult, what you see is what you get: they want to rock hard, and rock hard they do. Their music is uncomplicated and unpretentious, and was just the auditory palette cleanser I needed after spending my week listening to a significant amount of prog. In short, if you feel like lounging out back with a Budweiser and a cig, “Don’t Kill The Dark’ will make for the perfect soundtrack.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Late Night Adventure
02. The Beast
03. A Price To Pay
04. Stand Your Ground
05. The Colour Green
06. Don’t Kill The Dark
07. Forever Faster
08. Do Or Die
09. What We Know
10. Her Majesty
LINE-UP:
Johanna Lindhult – Vocals, Guitar
Anders Martinsgård – Guitar
Thomas Jonsson – Bass, Backing vocals
Carl Johan ”Sillen” Sillén – Drums
LINKS:
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