Southern Lord is proud to present the new opus from The Bay Area’s devastating duo BLACK COBRA. Formed by drummer Rafa Martinez (ex-16, ex-Acid King) and guitarist/vocalist Jason Landrian (ex-Cavity), BLACK COBRA catapulted themselves onto the scene in 2001 with their ravenous, upbeat and ultimately unique style of punk/hardcore-fueled sludge metal. They were picked up almost immediately by indie At A Loss Recordings becoming the band’s label home for the release of their debut full-length, Bestial, and follow-up album, Feather And Stone. By 2009, with the band then virtually a household name to the tens of thousands of fans who’ve seen their flooring live performances over the years, BLACK COBRA signed with juggernaut Southern Lord Recordings for the release of Chronomega, the band’s most diverse material to date.

For the recording of this, the band’s second release for Southern Lord Recordings, BLACK COBRA recently ventured across the continent to pound out their anticipated new album, the follow-up to 2009’s massively well-received Chronomega. This time around the outfit enlisted the talents of Converge guitarist Kurt Ballou and his God City Studio in Salem, Massachusetts. After a brutal week-and-a-half in the notorious lair, ‘COBRA hammered out what will soon be known to the world as their almighty fourth full-length album, “Invernal”. This is BLACK COBRA’s most honed and diversified material to date, and will definitely tear your face off completely. By the time you read this Black Cobra will have already decimated the fiends at the Power of the Riff Fest that their label put on in August. They also showcased songs from this album at the Music Fest Northwest festival in Portland and supporting High on Fire in Oakland. A rigorous amount of touring will continually be announced through the rest of 2011.

There is a hidden world where ancient evil weaves a modern mystery. A world filled with the darkest magic’s where all movement is caused by tensions between positive and negative furies. A world in which the furies, when out of balance, turn into demon and live forever. A creature of fast dark destructive power. Repulsive and evil existing only to plague the living as they do with LO-PAN, who is cursed. Cursed with rock and roll genius. Born out of a combination of dirty rock and roll, stale beer and an unhealthy obsession with “Big Trouble In Little China,” Columbus’s Lo-Pan have been tearing up the club circuit since 2005. Lo-Pan burst onto the local scene with their locally released self-titled album back in 2006. The local buzz gave way to more national attention as bands told bands and Lo-Pan began gracing venues big and small with names like Red Giant, Devil To Pay, Torche, Saviours, Year Long Disaster, Red Fang, Valkyrie, & the Atomic Bitchwax (just to name a few). Fast forward five years and there’s hardly a band worth playing with that they haven’t shared a stage with. Enter the sophomore release, “Sasquanaut.” Initial pressings on local indie Nice Life Records sold out quickly and as before the best praise is when one band on the road tells another “Hey, man you’ve got to check this out.” Which brought them, album masters in hand to us here at Small Stone. “Sasquanaut” had all the makings of a classic, thunderous low ends, pummeling drums, riffs to die for and a voice that soars but for all the genius that shone through it was still rough around the edges (don’t get us wrong we love rough around the edges). So we checked them in to a proper studio and left them in the capable hands of Benny Grotto for a little remixing, a little re-mastering and just ever so much re-recording. Enter Sasquanaut, mark 2: “Sasquanaut (Remixed & Re-mastered).” Heavier, more dynamic, louder and just that tiny bit more polished, this is the album that bands and fans new they could make. Mere words just can’t do justice to the effect that a little more time and the proper equipment have had on these eight raging tracks. Maybe a quote from the bands namesake might sum it up. “When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall maniac grabs your neck, taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall, and he looks you crooked in the eye and he asks you if ya paid your dues, you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye, and you remember what ol’ Jack Burton always says at a time like that: “Have ya paid your dues, Jack?” “Yessir, the check is in the mail.”

Sioum is an instrumental trio based out of Chicago, Illinois. Formed in 2008, the band consists of brothers Dorian Zdrinc (guitar), Arthur Zdrinc (drums) and Kevin Clark (keys). They often draw inspiration from film, video games, and most frequently, emotion itself. Post-metal, as well as progressive influence are often noted, although occasionally, many broad (and unusual) influences, such as contemporary classical and chiptune, can be heard.

Almost six years after Sioum’s debut LP, in May of 2016 the group released their second full-length album Yet Further. It was recorded and engineered by Greg Norman (Russian Circles, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Pelican.) Whereas I Am Mortal was based mainly on fictional stories and imagery, the music of Yet Further serves more as artifacts that reflect and convey the personal tribulation, hopes, and fears experienced after their first album was released. The music maintained a similar cinematic and emotional core, but with more content, variation, and complexity throughout each song. A noticeably more progressive influence could also be heard, with heavier exploration of distortion passages.