ĄViva la Cobra!

AMG Review of ĄViva la Cobra!

Andrew Leahey
All Music Guide

Cobra Starship surfaced in 2006 as part of the well-marketed Snakes on a Plane package, and the band's spiky pop-punk found a quick home among cult film buffs and Samuel L. Jackson fanatics. It was easy to like this first incantation of Cobra Starship -- especially the breakout single "Bring It (Snakes on a Plane)" -- as the band was part of something fun, flashy, and consciously campy. ĄViva la Cobra! arrived one year after that emergence, and what had begun as something harmlessly fun (replete with eye-candy cameos by William Beckett and Maja Ivarsson) had turned into a full-fledged band. While the dance-pop numbers here end up repeating the same steps in an attempt to perfect the one routine Cobra Starship know how to do, there's enough melody to satisfy most lingering fans, and Cobra Starship get a major leg-up from Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump, who doubles as producer and co-writer for all 11 tracks.