Tesla, Dokken, Cinderella, Warrant, Trixter, DLR-era Van Halen, post-“Pyromania” Def Leppard, post-‘Slow N' Easy’ Whitesnake, and of course - -King Kobra. King Kobra invokes the sounds of all of these classic glam-season 80s hard rock bands on their 2013 release, confusingly entitled "II." Is it a prequel to their 1988 album, "King Kobra III"?

These guys have delivered exactly what they set out to create: an 80s throwback, replete with white boy boogie, badass tude, adrenaline rock, and a pretty ballad. As always, King Kobra are more about a good time than they are about deep philosophical musings or challenging prog time signatures. If that's your thing, and the roster of influences excites you, then this album should be a hit in your catalog. I doubt if it's available in cassette, sadly, because that would seem the be the most appropriate format for King Kobra II.

Scene legend Carmine Appice leads the way behind the drumset, but the most memorable sequences generally belong to vocalist Paul Shortino, a.k.a. the guy from Rough Cutt and Dio's Hear N' Aid ‘Stars’ charity single. His jailhouse skit at the start of ‘The Ballad of Johnny Rod’ are as silly and hammy as any of David Lee Roth's goofiest moments. In another mode, his soaring, sensitive rasp over the shimmering acoustic guitars of ‘Take Me Back’ would have gotten many bras tossed onstage, back in the day. Beyond this, the tracks are pretty much a bunch of forgettable mid-tempo rockers from a forgotten age. For me, the two keeper tracks are ‘Hell on Wheels’ and ‘Deep River’. There's definitely still a subculture for this, and King Kobra is delivering the right stuff for that audience.