Guest
Buy here: Follow Cognitive: The band's fifth full-length album and a tremendously worthy successor to 2021’s Malevolent Thoughts Of A Hastened Extinction, Abhorrence finds the New Jersey powerhouse quintet at its brutal best. Unrelenting riffs leave the listener stunned, while a wave of thoughtful, devastating lyrics washes over. The album is a raging, draining, and ultimately fulfilling experience. COGNITIVE started work on Abhorrence while touring in support of Malevolent Thoughts Of A Hastened Extinction, sending tracks back and forth while trekking from one intense gig to the next. “There were riffs and ideas that didn't make Malevolent Thoughts...,” notes guitarist Rob Wharton. “We just kept toiling away with it. And then we recorded the ‘Rot Eternal’ single in between touring. So, it's been just nonstop writing.” Drummer AJ Viana has his own studio (he’s previously worked with bands as prestigious as Hath) and recorded, tracked, and mixed the album, before Ryan Williams (The Black Dahlia Murder, John Frum) at Metal Blade Records mastered it. To the album’s immense benefit, it was a collaborative process and everyone brought their A game. Abhorrence is an exercise in aural turbulence, each track taking its listener on a magnificently traumatic journey. “Our lyrics for this record are all over the place,” says Wharton. “There's some stuff about video games and addiction and mental health. To me, that’s the kind of subject matter that hits home because everyone's got stuff going on in their lives. It's relatable.” Relatable much like the album title itself. Peer at the state of the world in recent years and “abhorrence” seems like an entirely appropriate world. “We were going through all the song titles and wondering which is the strongest song,” Wharton says. “We decided to go with Abhorrence. Everyone's so mean and cruel to each other and the world is terrible. We just felt like it kind of encompassed everything. We had put a lot of time into that one specifically because there are so many repeating parts, but it was mostly about depression, anxiety attacks and mental health.” The title track also serves as the record’s opener and first single. Wharton elaborates, “‘Abhorrence’ is a groove-filled song with a melodic chorus. Heavily syncopated drums make every chug hit harder and harder. It’s a song filled with tension and aggressive vocal patterns screaming about anxiety, panic, and depression all at once.”
