BLACK COBRA.

My introduction to Black Cobra's music in any real way is thanks to the Total Fest Record Swap.

That's our Saturday fandango at Big Dipper Ice Cream on Higgins curated by Bryan Ramirez and which features amazingly delicious and hugely gratis iced coffee from Black Coffee Roasting Co. Typically, there's around ten or fifteen folks with anywhere from 25 to a few hundred LPs and other formats they're looking to offload at low, low (Lolo) prices. I'd read a fair amount and heard of Black Cobra, and they even canceled last minute with Torche on a house show at Niki's old place on Front Street. To be fair, this was probably 2004ish, I think it probably was a thirteen hour drive from their starting point to the show, and the show might have paid each band $63. So, really, it's water under the bridge at this point, dudes. #WUTB.

This just got into a weird tangent. All of it in good fun. Back to the seriousness: So, I'd heard of this Black Cobra band. A two piece with a huge sound. Playing metal. Big sound. Great band. But I hadn't picked any recordings up. So it was a Total Fest Record Swap. Maybe six years back now, and somebody showed me their pile of records. Among the stack was Black Cobra's "Feather and Stone." I picked it up for six bucks or something, just thinking, I need to check this out further. I remember distinctly the gnarly, feral metal that started filling the room when I first played it. Jason Landrian's guitar tone is so excellent. Unprocessed, gnarly and just right for the songs. It's the kind of tone that once you hear it, you kind of start judging other metal by. I think the only contemporary band that touches it for my money is Megasus.

Between Rafa's drums and Jason's riff's, it's hard to deny the sheer burl that is Black Cobra. And that's why they're playing Total Fest XIV, man. Okay?