vote
7.5
- Bands:
COGNITIVE - Duration: 00:35:44
- Available from: 05/17/2024
- Label:
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Metal Blade Records
Streaming not yet available
The American Cognitive can be stylistically placed in a very specific area, that of various death metal formations born around the beginning of the last decade by technically very skilled musicians and generally influenced by metalcore and deathcore; an interesting proposal, of which the Unique Leader roster was the main protagonist, which progressively defined itself and diversified internally over the next five years, bringing to light groups that were sometimes much loved even by large segments of the public not necessarily linked to particularly extreme sounds and intransigent – above all Fallujah and Fit For An Autopsy.
This niche therefore generally concerns groups with often crystalline productions and intricate, modern and sometimes progressive compositions, influenced by death metal and metalcore but not entirely placed within these fields and in some ways also distant from the all too abused expression 'technical death metal'.
The history of Cognitive has, in short, developed precisely following these coordinates: thanks to a certain stubbornness and great perseverance, in 2016 they managed to land on Unique Leader with their second album “Deformity” and to publish their fifth effort on Metal Blade without departing too much from the stylistic choices already defined in fact with the debut “Cognitive” in 2014, although enriched and updated over the course of more than a decade of publications and almost constant live activity – obviously excluding the problems linked in this sense to the various lockdown periods for the years 2020 to 2022.
Cognitive distinguish themselves from bands stylistically close to them such as The Kennedy Veil or Arkaik thanks to a less melodic and progressive approach in the general arrangement of the riffing – sometimes even closer to the real deathcore of groups such as Oceano of “Ascendants” or to the I Declare War of “Malevolence” – alternating, however, with parts in which the focus is instead on melodic arrangements of voices in which different vocal lines intertwine in what, however, are not actually real choruses, given the rather free of all eleven compositions of “Abhorrence”. Particularly noteworthy in this sense is the work of singer Shane Jost, who basically successfully draws inspiration from reference singers for modern metal in the broadest sense such as Travis Ryan and Joe Duplantier to enrich the band's formula, which is already quite rich.
The experiment is completely successful from this point of view: Cognitive present their vision of death metal with modern influences in a very solid manner for the entire duration of “Abhorrence”, with representative peaks of this formula such as the third piece ” A Pact Unholy” or the eighth “Rorschach”, perhaps the most successful of the entire album.
The desire to mix influences that can be identified quite easily is, however, in turn an element that does not always favor the band, where the risk of quotationism in different compositions is sometimes quite high and the comparison with groups that have opted for similar choices and approaches – for example Rivers Of Nihil – it's inevitable.
However, we feel like promoting this “Abhorrence” in a positive way, visually presented by an artwork perfectly in line with the musical proposal and also dressed in a very successful production by Aj Viana, drummer of the band, and Bart Williams, former bassist of The Black Dahlia Murder. Cognitive's latest album is, in summary, certainly a record that fans of the genre should not miss, although more generally it is not essential if the sounds proposed are not generally particularly appreciated by those who prefer other forms of extreme metal.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM