In the past couple of years, I’ve often found myself cycling through the city with a buoyant feeling in my chest, imagining myself dancing at summer festivals to darker, more underground-tinged lyrics and harder beats than ever before. There’s something completely mesmerising – almost hypnotic – about the current wave of experimental pop provocateurs. And when trying to understand how Cobrah commands this so brilliantly on her debut album, Torn, I find myself drifting into a parallel universe – one that is difficult not to fall in love with.
It was already evident when the intense music video for the single ‘Hush’ aired at the end of January this year. Clad in light peach latex, with bleached hair and pale, almost snake-like skin, Cobrah twists her body in a dark, futuristic room, whilst flirting with an alien-looking creature. Her theatrical universe is still a forceful narrative about female and queer empowerment. This time, however, the Swedish artist seems more self-assured and confident than ever. Yet it is not only in her usual BDSM way that she asserts herself such as on previous singles ‘GOOD PUSS’ or ‘BRAND NEW BITCH’. On Torn, she also succeeds in revealing greater emotional depth and softness. The result is a state of mind rendered through art in a way both disruptive and stripped back – something the world seems so desperately in need of.
At a time when outsized egos seem to dominate world leadership, it feels soothing and somewhat hopeful that more and more artists dare to envision other forms of power and new realities. Rather than embracing a version of feminism in which women adopt stereotypically masculine traits in order to gain recognition, Cobrah proposes alternative ways of being powerful within oneself and embracing the complexity of it. You might argue that they are burning down the patriarchy one brazen, wonderfully arrogant line at a time. As she sings on the album track ‘Excusez Moi’, Cobrah “honestly doesn’t care, it’s all about her”.
We’ve witnessed this in various forms over the past few years, most recently in Robyn’s single ‘Sexistential’ from her upcoming album of the same name and FKA Twigs’ Eusexua. Both exemplify a type of music that, through experimentation and extremity, tries to encapsulate female sexuality and inner life. For their own good and for the good of the world they are demanding to be seen and recognised. Artists such as Slayyyter, Kim Petras and Ashnikko have succeeded in doing so – the latter even enlists Cobrah on the hot hit ‘Wet Like’. These artists seem more empowered and, in Cobrah’s case, more vulnerably layered than ever before. They dare to provoke and push boundaries, individually and together, not only through playful, audacious words but through very well-composed beats.
With her hushed vocals, theatrical fetish-feminine lyrics, and electronic hyperpop soundscapes Cobrah has repeatedly shown that she knows how to have fun and entertain her audience at the same time. On her debut album, she maintains her sex-positiveness while trying something new. “I love doing characters. I love making things up and being extreme – and I’m still doing that on this album – but I’m also peeling it all off and presenting my real self as a character”, said Cobrah upon the release of Torn.
On the album’s title track, ‘Torn’, first released in 2025, Cobrah shows a more pared-back version of herself. Her vulnerable lyrics are submerged within a chorus driven by a heavy, almost overwhelming electronic bassline, articulating what words alone cannot: the feeling of being completely (heart)broken. Dark in tone, this track is one of the most powerful on the album. The lyrics to songs like ‘Charming’, ‘Snow White’ and ‘Really Hard’ are similarly sentimental and melancholic but calmer in their electronic, floating soundscapes. “Cause I’ve tried to be sweet, tried to be real. I have tried to stay cool, I’d do that for you, it’s so stupid of me…”, she sings in ‘Charming’, once again revealing a softer, more sombre side of her artistry. In this way, she holds up a mirror to a very human experience – the feeling of being hopelessly in love. But within the virtual embrace of the album, she also asserts complexity and confidence, claiming that she’s “too good to be true, too good to you”.
‘Hit Girl’ creates a hypnotic state of mind as Cobrah shifts between high tempo and humming pauses, dissolving into one another. She remains a strong and powerful presence on her debut album Torn, and the more graphic, sensual, and arrogant catwalk tracks – ‘IG’, ‘Platinum‘ and ‘Unoriginal’ – only enhance this. ‘Dog‘ breaks the softness of the album for good: “It’s a ‘fuck me’ song, there’s no singing, it’s quite rough and graphic,” she says. Yet her femininity is no longer demonstrated through fetishistic themes alone. And that is perhaps one of the album’s greatest strengths. In our highly technologised world, there is a hunger for sincerity in its many forms, and Cobrah definitely answers that desire. Each track on Torn harbours unique surprises and embraces different moods through brilliantly composed electronic soundscapes that compel you to surrender and listen carefully to what Cobrah is urging you to feel.
Although part of a broader wave of innovative, sex-positive, and intense female and queer artists, Cobrah’s debut album creates a slightly softer universe of empowering electronic beats and escapist release for those who dare to join her. In an erotic, BDSM, underground sphere, she draws you in, claiming ownership of her desires and emotions alike. And this time, in a more stripped-back version than before. The album’s complexity between catwalk, hard ballroom-inflected beats and emotional tenderness makes it a work of art – one that will resonate just as powerfully in an underground club, the solitude of heartbreaks or cycling through the city feeling utterly uplifted.
