The Crown

COBRA SPEED VENOM

METAL BLADE SCYTHING SCANDO-METAL EXECUTED BY MERCILESS EXPERTS Roughly 90 seconds into Iron Crown, the second track on Cobra Speed Venom, The Crown serve up a riff so outrageously and beautifully Slayer-ised that many metalheads of a certain age will be compelled to stand and applaud. This brutish, muscular blending of thrash metal’s vicious simplicity and the glowering rumble’n’grind of underground death metal is a well-worn formula, but as with 2015’s Death Is Not Dead and 2002’s Tompa-fronted Crowned With Terror, Cobra Speed Venom feels like a decisive show of imperious strength. The full-throttle likes of mini-epic In The Name Of Death and the turbo-blasted Rise In Blood are driven forward by insane levels of aggression, but these are elegantly crafted heavy metal songs, too. Even closing behemoth The Sign Of The Scythe is a masterclass in stripped-to-thebone compositional economy. By any standards, a seriously great metal record.

FOR FANS OF: AT THE GATES, UNLEASHED, TESTAMENT

DOM LAWSON