Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: King Kobra
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2013
Length: 64:24
Rating: 4.5/5
King Kobra! Even though almost 25 years have passed since the glory days of the eighties and the albums “Ready To Strike” and “Thrill Of A Lifetime”, it’s hard to stay indifferent whenever you call up the look and work of the classic King Kobra from memory.
In 2011 King Kobra came back from the dead with a new album. They gave it a dead-simple title. Just »King Kobra«. For the band, that means a kind of rebirth, a kind of fresh start. On that record they started flirting with retro forms of rock, and the album carries a noticeable whiff of blues rhetoric and moves well away from their eighties sound. The new album keeps the rebirth theme going, as the guys have titled it »II«. As if it were only the second album of their career and the eighties had never happened. I can say right here that they did it for a solid reason.
»II« deepens the expressive direction of its predecessor. On »II« King Kobra push even more resolutely back through time, where they shamelessly wallow in the discoveries of many rock pioneers. Right out of the gate they recall Rainbow in the era with Joe Lynnn Turner on vocals, as the album opens with Hell On Wheels – a track with an extremely memorable, sharply cut guitar riff that masterfully embodies the very title of the song. Running Wild, later on the album, comes close to it in arrangement and energy. In tone and delivery Paul Shortino eerily approaches Joe Lynn Turner’s voice; in earlier productions (various albums from Shortino’s career) where Shortino sang, this resemblance never came through the way it does on the new King Kobra album. Don’t Keep Me Waiting could easily have landed on one of Joe Lynn Turner’s older solo records.
Even more important observations come later. The album is a real retro rock monument. In energy it partly recalls the straight-up retro sound of The Lizards, those classic rock greats who split up far too early in the previous decade of this millennium, though it doesn’t have such a raw production. Part of the credit surely goes to the reactivation of the legendary »American Led Zeppelin« called Cactus, a band in which Carmine Appice, the boss of King Kobra, has been swinging the drumsticks since forever. Still, Appice isn’t the only one in the King Kobra camp with a say in the terms under which the band’s musical character develops. As we know, the revived King Kobra are actually in an identical lineup to the one before they fell apart at the end of the eighties. Only Shortino replaced Mark Free on vocals. So it took the consensus of at least four fifths of today’s King Kobra members before the band, after the release of »King Kobra« (2011), went into writing music and dug even deeper into retro rock culture!
Next up, the track Knock Them Dead again recalls a songwriting approach cut after the early-school rock riff of eighties acts like Y&T, which means the riff is thoroughly soaked in retro blues and rock n’ roll culture. Then there’s Have A Good Time, which runs parallel to the energy of Bad Company, while The Crunch could be described as a cross between Aerosmith and Cactus, and where there’s Cactus, Led Zeppelin is of course never far away. There’s The Ballad Of Johnny Red, where the band even wades into »boogie blues« waters. The picture of the new King Kobra comes across best on the album’s longest track, Deep River. It catches a mosaic cross-section of all the influences of the bands mentioned. It’s the most complex composition on the album. You could call it a mini epic suite, one that masterfully keeps the red thread of full-blooded rock ‘n’ roll coherence throughout, which further proves that King Kobra are excellent arrangers!
»II« is a superbly cut party-ready retro-sounding hard rock and rock ‘n’ roll album, with just a single »beauty flaw«. All the way through it reminds you of some historic rock riff. Sadly. But it’s forgivable anyway. If we link Carmine Appice to the legendary Vanilla Fudge, the King Kobra lineup directly gets one of those musicians who showed up at the end of the sixties in a pioneering role, opening up new musical dimensions to Earthlings. King Kobra do solve the »problem of reminding you of stuff that’s already been invented« with plenty of heart. »II« really does work through the commitment and passion poured into it, both by Shortino with his excellent vocal expression, a colorful blend of Joe Lynn Turner, Bryan Adams and Jon Bon Jovi, and by the rest of the crew, who deliver vividly crackling »soloisms« of guitar escapades and punchy rhythmic pulsing! The album is full of breath and honesty, and nobody can take that away from it, nor can you just shut your eyes to that fact. From all this studio »grooving« (there must be extraordinary working chemistry in the band) the songs have also grown in running time, and the album stretches to over 67 minutes, which isn’t exactly normal for the legacy of your average hard rock album. But trust me. In its rock ‘n’ roll explosiveness and heart, »II« won’t leave you hanging. With »II« the musical expression of the newly reborn King Kobra has also crystallized! Redefined in both sound and style, King Kobra can now take a full artistic run-up on the follow-up to »II«. The only question is what they’ll call it, because an album titled »III« was already released in the eighties.
Line-up
Paul Shortino – vocals
David Michael-Philips – guitar
Mick Sweda – guitar
Johnny Rod – bass
Carmine Appice – drums
Production
David Henzerling, Carmine Appice & Paul Shortino
Track list
1. Hell On Wheels
2. Knock ‘Em Dead
3. Have A Good Time<
4. The Ballad Of Johnny Rod
5. Take Me Back
6. When The Hammer Comes Down
7. Running Wild
8. The Crunch
9. Got It Comin’
10. Deep River
11. Don’t Keep Me Waiting
12. We Go Round
