ALBUM REVIEW: Robocobra Quartet – Living Isn’t Easy

First Taste Records

Released: 17.06.22

A quartet that isn’t a quartet, a pugnacious and wilful humour has always run through Robocobra Quartet’s work: on their third album Living Isn’t Easy, their barbed wit and their eclectic mix of sounds and influences combine to often spectacular effect. Their fusion of post-Mingus jazz and punk informed rhythm finds itself leavened by an increased sense of Slint-ian space, bursting the arrangements apart to grander scales without having to reach for the ornate.

Lead single Wellness is a pointed barb at influencer and hustler mindsets, but the mid-section of Chromo Sud – an equally beautiful and grinding rant against the housing crisis – and the disturbing, moving Plant (The Succulent Blues) are where Robocobra Quartet’s deliberate juxtapositions come together remarkably.