Review of Cog - Sharing Space

By billy33

I should probably open by assuring worshippers of Cogs debut The New Normal an album that arguably caused a seismic shift in Australian rock that the trio have carried all the best things about their debut into their sophomore effort. The intuitive shifts in dynamic, the almighty wall of sound (although it is employed a little more conservatively) and the knack for raising tension to boiling point before granting release all are present in Sharing Space. And yet, it is a markedly different beast to The New Normal. If it isnt superior to its predecessor, it is definitely more ambitious. Something youll quickly notice is that the guys are being a lot more upfront with their politics. While the themes are now easily discernible, somehow none of the intellectual bite of The New Normal has been lost in the process. Are You Interested?, in particular, is a perfectly succinct fusion of message and riffage: The groove hits hard, driving home its warning about the looming spectre of an Orwellian Big Brother. There are a few occasions, however, where the band do away with the pretensions of prose altogether, substituting wit for swagger. Just listen to Flynns syncopated lines over Lukes string-slapped, funkified bass in Swamp: I dont listen at all-uh-to the gov-a-ment, the gov-a-ment has gotta go-a-woah, yeah And of course, the powerful hope anthem What If is, at the end of the day, the distorted descendant of Lennons Imagine. While I dont always agree with Cogs black-and-white worldviews, theres definitely a thrill in knowing theres still a band with the guts to be this blunt - or, dare I say it, seditious about things that actually matter. The sheer fact that a band like Cog can exist indicates that we arent quite doomed Another thing youll quickly notice about Sharing Space is its vastly thicker and richer instrumentation. At the time of writing, Ive listened to the album four times, and still feel like Ive only seen the tip of the instrumental iceberg. The fact the band have upped the ante on the electronic aspect, at least, is immediately obvious. Sharing Spaces title track, probably the albums closest thing to pop-rock, incorporates softly cascading synthesized arpeggios that facilitate its lyrical birds-eye view on life. The challenging Bitter Pills, a song preoccupied with the existential void, starts life as in percussive acoustic mode, but eventually takes the electronic path to its most surreal conclusion. Some of the instrumental touches on the album initially appear to make very little sense: The banjo in No Other Way, the bittersweet violin in the background of Swamps pounding chorus after a while you stop questioning why they work so well. You just accept that the band have the musical intuition that can cut through the restrictive barriers of style and genre like a hot knife through margarine. And you thank them for it. Something less obvious, but no less significant to Sharing Space, are its moments of unencumbered emotion. How Long is an ostensibly simple, but beautifully crafted and obviously heartfelt ballad for anyone who has ever wished for something better (ie. everybody). And Flynns vocals in the absent fathers lament Bird Of Feather are positively spine-tingling. Though they arent necessarily standouts, these songs do give the album heart, and help to trace the root of Cogs politics back to compassion. Culminating in a mercilessly grinding riff, and buoyed by percussion with a certain tribal edge (influence of Bill Bruford here) closing track Problem Reaction Solution is musically abrasive and conceptually explosive, making the kind of suggestions about the US and 9/11 that you generally dont want to make unless youre standing behind bulletproof glass. All up, Sharing Space is an album where the bold lyrical concepts are matched by a bravado of musical vision; an album so meticulous in its texturing, so wide in its genre embrace, so brilliantly unpredictable, and yet, so richly infused with hard-hitting groove, that even prog-rock seems too narrow a term. The band have taken an innumerable number of risks throughout, and every single one of them has paid off.