Welsh band Obey Cobra have shared details of their second album, Mwg Drwg.
Out in May, the 12-track record follows on from their 2021 debut, Oblong, and meshes elements of post-punk and industrial and electronic music. The new album takes its name from a slang term for marijuana and translates more literally as ‘bad drug’ or ‘bad smoke’. To mark its announcement, the band have shared a video for lead track ‘Ten Of Wands’, which you can watch above.
In a statement about the video, the band said: "The Mari Lwyd – a horse skeleton dressed in white sheets and adorned with ribbons – is a Welsh folkloric custom. In both history and the present day, for Wassail, the Mari Lwyd leads a procession, knocking on the doors of local houses trying to gain entry through song.
"The people who live in the houses deny the Mari Lwyd from entering, again through song, and the two sides continue this call and response until either the householders eventually relent, and the Mari Lwyd is allowed in and given food and drink… or must continue without on their journey.
"In the music video for ‘Ten Of Wands’, we follow the Mari Lwyd. An outsider and outcast from the edges of the earth, wandering through historical spaces void of humans, eventually ending at the open sea. ‘Ten Of Wands’ tells of a reading and premonition, given to lead singer K Wood, taken with a pinch of salt."
Rocket Recordings will release Mwg Drwg on May 3, 2024.
