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COBRAKILL
Serpent’s Kiss

Frontiers (2024)
Rating: 8/10

These impressive German headbangers have yet to master the art of a decent album cover but the style is certainly eye catching if somewhat hideous. Thankfully, the music contained herein, just like the band’s 2022 debut full-length opus Cobratör, is a striking, scorching smorgasbord of 80s nostalgia blessed with fiery riffs, melodic streaks and vicious n’ sticky glam attitude.

Once again, CobraKill can’t help but stir up 80s metal dust as if they were a fresh, new colourful book being slapped down on a library shelf that has been undisturbed for years. The likes of classic Ratt, Dokken, W.A S.P. and Mötley Crüe are conjured with such boisterous belters as ‘Seventeen’ and the streetwise gutter rocker ‘Razor Blade’. The sounds are familiar but laced with a cocksure heaviness that stinks of leather and hairspray as the gang swagger their way into Led Zeppelin territory on the groove based strut of ‘Hungry Heart’, the accessible AOR laced ‘Concrete Jungle’ and the Dokken fuelled ‘Bazooka’. And speaking of Dokken, one can’t help but slither along to the George Lynch-fired crunch of ‘Torture Me’.

What CobraKill execute so successfully is that oily fusion of glam-tinged hard rock and a fatty, heavyweight strength and arrogance. This is evidenced on the bruising ‘Velvet Snakeskin’ and another favourite of mine, ‘Same Ol’ Nasty Rock N’ Roll’. The latter is an apt title that proves with every slap of lipstick and soaring firework that CobraKill knows exactly what they are doing, and that’s channelling an era where many bands of this ilk were far heavier than people realise.

I’m not even sure if CobraKill themselves would have heard of acts such as Slik Toxik, Mr. Nasty and Sweet Pain, but that’s very much the flavour here; trashy sleaze-ridden German metal that doesn’t apologise for its blunt, throwback themes. To put it simple, Serpent’s Kiss leaves all sorts of stains on the bed linen and a sickly scent that combines sweat, perfume and good ol’ fashioned denim, leather n’ sex.

Neil Arnold

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