WAR METAL

"War Metal" is the debut full-length studio album by US, Greeley, Colorado based black metal act Cobalt. The album was released through From Beyond Productions in April 2005. "War Metal" was already recorded in May 2003 at Hellion Studio though. Cobalt is a two-piece act consisting of Erik Wunder on Drums, Vocals, Bass and Guitar and Phil McSorley on Vocals and Guitar.

The music on "War Metal" is pretty straight forward black metal with blasting drums, raspy vocals, and distorted guitars. There are lots of more traditional heavy metal elements on the album too though and it´s especially when the pace is slowed down a bit that some groove and melody appear. The musicianship on the album is excellent. I´m especially fond of the drumming on the album which is tight and furiously fast played. The songwriting and the riffs are of a pretty standard quality though and I could have wished for a more innovative or original songwriting approach. The production is not your typical thin high end black metal sound. The sound is fat, full, and pretty brutal and that´s something that might appeal to death metal fans rather than black metal ditto. A very successful sound production, which suits the music well.

While there´s certainly room for improvement, "War Metal" is a pretty enjoyable black metal release by Cobalt and I´d say a 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.