title: Just Visiting Part 2 EP

URL: http://www.adequacy.net/reviews/c/cog.shtml

date: 11/11/02

writer: Geoff

2002 has really been Cog's year in Australia. Beginning with the highly successful (for an independent release) Just Visiting Part 1 (JV1), they've toured ceaselessly up and down and across the country and established themselves to the point of standing above most other hard-rock acts, certainly in terms of quality. JV2 sees the group well-and-truly casting off any nervous jitters, and the progress from 1 to 2, sonically and musically, is astonishing.

It's as if the band has finally* become comfortable with utilizing the trickery and tools of the studio to assist and enhance the rhapsodic elements of their songs. "Just Visiting" starts off with a sampled arrest attempt (?) then moves into a drone punctuated by light bass notes reminiscent of Neil Young's Dead Man work. Some crunching, almost synthesised ATR-like noises appear then vanish, a spoken-word sample pops up, and it's only three minutes into the eight-minute song that amplified heavy guitar appears with that now-familiar Cog squall of sound. It's brave, a little bizarre, but absolutely right for the sound it achieves, a rising/falling sweating moshpit that surges and soothes only to rise up all over again.

Cog have not done a Madonna and reinvented themselves according to the current metal-lite favored by MTV - "Paris, Texas" is still ear-poundingly intense just when you begin to relax, and Flynn Gower's vocals have, if anything, darkened, while Bonch and Luke Gower's instrumentation remains capable of bruising even the hardened ears of a jaded music critic. And yes, it's a semi-operatic female voice (Carla Werner's) that makes "The Truth and Other Lies" JV2's centerpiece, all pulled-cymbal-punches, a helicopter-like whirring, a changing time frame, and vocals whispering behind almost-shouts and a carefully built-up tension that lets loose halfway through a into Sepultura-like mess, finding peace of a sort as Werner's voice lifts, an acoustic guitar string is hammered and then emptiness. Like the eye of the hurricane.

What we find then with JV2 is a denser EP, one that requires more than a casual listen to appreciate where it's coming from or, more appropriately, where it's going to. JV2 shows a band on the edge, building itself up for the long battle that making a living in the music industry requires. It's the sound of solidity, of battening down the hatches, cranking up the amps, and being ready, yet not too scared to experiment with the battle plan. Who knows what the album will bring? In the meantime, an album to listen to via headphones to capture Cog at their best-to-date.

* It has been brought to my attention that both Just Visitings were recorded at the same time. Short of accusing Cog of concocting a grand plot to confuse music journalists all over the country, it should be said then that you should never trust the opinion of a music reviewer over 25 who wears glasses and once wore a Metallica t-shirt to a New Kids on the Block concert. You have been warned.