Black Cobra
Feather and Stone

LA RECENSIONE

And here we are finally at what I would never neglect to include in my survival kit for universal floods:

"Feather And Stone", 2007 (Southern Lord).

This work, succeeding "Bestial" (2006), marks a decisive step for Black Cobra in confirming themselves as a cult band, diligently striving to carve out a niche in the stoner-doom scene that modernity often presents to us with great haste. The Black Cobra, as perhaps few know, is capable of imposing itself from the first listen with its devastating yet distorted Central American "necro-energy", not only confirmed but even surpassed on this cd, where the speed of light is nothing compared to mammoth-like litanies like "The Shapire Falcon", a lava-like and searing flow, worthy of the most horrifying volcanic eruptions. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, here all the notes are present and merge into one with the rock, which doesn’t even falter in hallucinations, for instance in "Below The Cusp", through which I can feel magnetic inversions as imminent as they are prophetic, urging me to start running without revealing the possibility percentage of my survival.

This is madness.

But to make you breathe the "step forward", it is fair to point out how the entire album is tied to a concept woven firmly, track by track, which in my opinion sees in the ferocity of human life a particularly relevant and employed key reading, even with a moderate expressive vein (consider "Thanos", a dreamlike and odyssean ballad). And the surprises seem never to end, especially if one is virile enough to analyze the rampant amplifying violence of "Red Tide", a red monsoon of devastating and merciless whirls, left there "walking" on your impotent and narcotized eardrums: slaves to the pre-Columbian spell the two shamans/composers dare to conceal in each of their piercing compositional creatures.

What satisfies me most about this band, however, is their attitude. For instance, once reaching the oracle of "Dragon & Phoenix", it will seem impossible to most, but you will perceive a genuine Zoroastrian influence, symbolically and solemnly engraved in the very title of the proposed track. This piece, veridically and vitally nothing short of solar and radioactive. Undoubtedly among the best. And what about "Ascension"? It’s truly difficult to describe the overwhelming emotion, the chills, the cold sweat, that my skin experiences as soon as those that seem to be two Himalayan distortions of ethereal craftsmanship ignite, descending without brakes from an altitude of over 8700 kilometers, and barbarically culminating in the last "Swords For Teeth", a tank of sacred Hindi vibrations able to realign your molars, gums, and enamel without even a hint of "cthulhuian" craftsmanship.

You'll wonder: and the first track??

The first track? Fine.

I’ll leave that for you to comment on, imagining you shocked and petrified by the insolence, ignominy, absurdity, preponderance, and shamanic occult virulence that these two wretches dared to compose, starting right from the massive "Five Daggers".

Even in this case, listening is not advised for those weak of "hearing".

There are no anti-nausea aids provided here...

No, there really aren't.