Reviews list for Year of the Cobra - Year of the Cobra (2025)

Whilst listening to Year of the Cobra, I found myself debating how difficult it must be to be in a two-piece drum and bass doom combo.  I mean there must be a lot of pressure on the bassist to start with.  How much do you yield to the temptation to play it like a rhythm guitar, or perhaps go the opposite way and use the bass to create dense atmospheres like Bell Witch? On YotC, Amy manages a bit of both.  She carves out some bone-jangling riffs for sure, yet she also gives us enough bottom end to thicken up proceedings nicely on the tamer sections, when the beefier riffs are on the back burner.  You can sense the same dilemna with the drums of course.  Do they take precedence over the bass or simply play along in support of the four strings?  Again, like his wife, Johanes finds a good balance here.  As unremarkable as his performance maybe, the presence he brings cannot be underestimated.

Of course, Amy also has responsibility for the vocals.  Her dreamy, stoner/psychedelic style works in great contrast to her heavier bass work.  The vocal performance on album closer 'Prayer' stands out in particular with its very personal and sentimental traits making for a deeply heartfelt display.  It is not often a doom track manages to invoke emotion in me, but I genuinely fought back tears when listening to that song.  As the album highlight for me, it is a shame that such beauty is quite isolated here.

With some sense of inevitability perhaps, YotC suffers to a degree of a lack of variation.  Tracks such as 'Alone' lose me completely, and no matter how many times I play the record, I cannot tell you how 'Sleep' sounds.  Stronger tracks like opener '...Full Sails', 'War Drop' and 'Daemonium' are sufficient to rescue the record from the lower end of the scoring spectrum.  Like I said at the top of this review, tough gig this two-piece doom set up and unfortunately it shows here.