Review: cocklobin - black

In my sheer laziness at updating my blog regularly with things I review I forgot that there were actually a good number of things that I downloaded, enjoyed, and forgot to put here. cocklobin's black would be one of them. I'm not too sure how old it is but it shouldn't be more than a few months, which means this review is warranted seeing as how cocklobin is extremely slow to put out music.

01. black
02. reborn
03. hearts

black comes with three tracks: the title track creatively called black, reborn, and hearts. What initially drew me to this band was the news that Iori from Siva was in this band as well as the bassist HISAKI from Black:List back during the Desperate/Genuine Malice era. Despite the fact that I didn't need yet another heavy metal band to listen to I decided to take a look at black figuring I could always just delete it if it wasn't good enough for me to listen to.

Ladies and gentlemen, I got my mind blown for the third time that week.

cocklobin isn't your ordinary type of band and even though black was a signal that they were progressing to do harsher music the traces of musicality that made cocklobin so badass are still there. cocklobin's music can be played by a beginner in the guitar but it's the way it all flows combined with the passion of the vocalist Nigu that drives this band's sound. Nigu actually screams his heart out on black and then thirty seconds later we're treated to delicious singing and sexy bass lines. Neither the singing nor the screaming overpowers one another which is rare since one likes to take center stage and command the direction of the track. reborn has an extremely catchy verse where Nigu sings with passion as well as yet another hard riff balanced by softer passages all in the blink of an eye. What cocklobin manages to do well is balance hard with soft because they realize soft isn't synonymous with poppy. Rejoice, for this is a glorious day. A bands have finally started to realize that you can strum lightly and not have to change the direction of the track.

All three of the tracks on this single were excellent but the one that really steals it would have to be hearts, the last track. The riff is elementary of course but with a bit of stereo usage combined with flowing transitions keeps the track moving right up until the distorted sound effects at the end close out the track. Everyone's instruments are kept in line -- the drums don't decide to start blastbeats for any apparent reason, the bass isn't thick and distorted and there's no unnecessary eight bar solo that does nothing but solidify stereotypical song structure. hearts closes out the single pretty well.

black wasn't as diversified with it's sound as DARK DESIGN CATALOG was but there's simply no way to accurately compare a mini with a single. Here, cocklobin gives us three harsher, yet still strangely melodic tracks and says "this is the evolution in our sound". By no means are they a one trick pony but what I'd like to see next is them push the harshness to the limit as well as bring back the piano and the softer elements that comprised songs such as the dark and cock. I'd also like to see a mixture inbetween, like songs that black has given us but not exactly the same. I'm very satisfied with black -- it's one of the few singles that I'd recommend people invest time in.