title: Nowhere Near Normal

date: April 2005

magazine: Beat Magazine

writer: Jesse Shrock

[ Cog ]
Nowhere Near Normal

Because the sound is just bigger. I mean, we all talk about heavy rock as having a ‘wall of sound’, but in this case we’re talking the frigging Great Wall of China. The feeling you get when the opening track Real Life comes booming at you is the same as when the guardrail comes down and the gravity-defying amusement park ride just starts lurching into motion. I only have a basic understanding of what is involved in mixing an album, but I’m willing to bet that a consistent objective was to saturate as much of the perceptible frequency range as possible.

For another, there just seems to be more of a sense of purpose behind the dynamics. Instead of a having a kind of novelty randomness -‘It’s getting louder, but now it’s gone soft! Ha, fooled ya!’ - the changing tone of the songs seems to come as naturally as the calm eye of the storm that comes before the wind roars again. The same goes for the tempo changes, which you are unlikely to notice unless you are actually tapping your foot at the time they occur.

It seems, in fact, as if it is the music that is the primary narrative, with the lyrics coming at the listener in a more layered, fractured manner. It’s as if Flynn is booming passionately at us from a great distance one minute, with Luke or Lucius whispering intently in our ear the next, and sometimes both at the same time. This can make the listener feel as if they are in an agitated rally of some sort, and is put to fantastic use in Anarchy OK. Here, the final touch is provided by an alarm bell, as if to wake the masses up from their political slumber.

This song, along with the thumping Silence is Violence, is really about as specifically political as Cog gets, with most of the lyrical themes being more observational. Cog focuses a great deal on the common person’s aching hunger for meaning. This growing sense of strain behind the cyclical chord progression tying in perfectly with a laborious account of the daily grind is exemplified in closing track Naming the Elephant. (The proverbial ‘elephant in the room’ being the frequently denied feeling of emptiness often symptomatic of western lifestyle) In many songs, such as Resonate, Cog acknowledge our desire to be moved, even shaken up in some way, while simultaneously going a long way to satisfy that desire.

Some readers may have come to recognise me as a devotee of instrumental/virtuoso rock – the Joe Satch/Steve Vai ilk. So it’s really saying something that I not only listened to all 73 minutes of this album without wishing for any solos, but was actually glad not to hear any. While Flynn, Luke and Lucius are all gob-smackingly tight musicians, their greatest achievement on this album is to engender an instant, and inexplicably organic (considering the music is at times intentionally unsettling) connection with the listener that remains unbroken right to the end. It just wouldn’t be worth sacrificing that for one of the boys to go off on a self-indulgent tangent.

A novel called Stranger in a Strange Land, which detailed the culture of an enlightened alien race, described ultimate art as being without physical medium, but rather layers and textures of raw emotion. And though Cog may be human (granted Lucius’ ability to belt out backing vocals while simultaneously pummelling us with intricate beats may invite debate on that premise), The New Normal comes about as close to this purity and intensity of expression as we earthlings are likely to achieve. True, it might contain a bit more anger than you’d find in ‘enlightened’ art, but Cog’s anger is a destructive force levelled at the barriers that prevent us from becoming enlightened.

Worth the wait.

Jesse Shrock