Cog are a modern, hard rock beast whose brand of progressive almost metal is built on churning riffs and eerie soundscapes in a manner similar to that of Tool. Appropriately,
The New Normal was recorded in America with Tool's producer Sylvia Massy Shivy. Lead singer Flynn Gower, who sports a beard straight out of Dr. Seuss, sings with enough genuineness and passion to deliver political songs like "Anarchy OK" and "Resonate" without sounding trite. Some of his rhymes suffer from being a touch too obvious, as in "Silence Is Violence" and "Charades," which pairs "Adelaide" with "lemonade" and pushes a simplistic melody for a couple of minutes longer than it deserves. The rest of the album, however, has enough unexpected turns and blistering riffs to carry them through even their longer odysseys like the ten minutes of "Doors (Now and Then My Life Feels Like it's Going Nowhere)."
Cog are at their best concocting these apocalyptic epics, sequels to Mad Max in song form, and will hopefully focus on them in the future. ~ Jody Macgregor