Rating: NNN
Kobra Paige has vocals straight out of the Bruce Dickinson school of metal: powerful, epic, soaring, both low in her chest and able to scale insane heights. The Calgary native’s vibrato could shake concrete, and her execution is note perfect throughout Kobra and the Lotus’s third album.
The songwriting goes for broke, too. Dazzling, virtuosic guitar solos draw from power metal, and sometimes the riffs nod to classic metal (see the thrashy Willow). Though militaristic themes abound – song names include Warhorse, Soldier, Battle Of Wrath – the lyrics are more personal (and religious?) than old-school Maidenesque medieval D&D.
It’s a dense style that has little breathing room, zero subtlety and a stiffness to the rhyme and metre. It takes itself more seriously than the acts KATL are opening for at the Molson Amphitheatre, but the band could never be accused of lacking ambition or being shrinking violets.
Top track: High Priestess
Kobra and the Lotus play the Molson Amphitheatre on August 12 with KISS and Def Leppard.
