Formed in the heart of New Jersey’s underground metal scene back within 2011 comes COGNITIVE. A technical death metal/deathcore troupe that has built up quite the following over the years. With their last full-length album “Malevolent Thoughts of a Hastened Extinction” being released back in 2021, we can only anticipate what we have coming. With their solid fan base eagerly waiting, we can say the wait is finally over. COGNITIVE blasts into 2024 with their latest album “Abhorrence” which promises a bone-shattering technical death metal fused with deathcore. I'm looking forward to getting into this album and seeing what the hype is about. “Abhorrence” was released on May 17, 2024 and is their debut full-length album under the Metal Blade banner. With ten devastating tracks that are brutally unforgiving for 35:44 minutes, so let’s get into it. Looking at their album art, there is so much to talk about as there is a lot going on. Some form of biomechanical looking god-like deity resides within the upper central portion. Three heads hover above the body with a golden metallic like halo among other golden metal objects that surround the heads. Floating golden metal-like disks encircle the deity as green-like hands reaching upwards from the lower portion. There is just so much going on and it works well. Amazing and unique album art for sure. Their logo sits top left as the album name in a clean font sits and the central bottom of the album.

The opening track “Abhorrence” slams forth in a torrent of heavy slam riffs and vocals that remind me of some old school metalcore. I can hear LAMB OF GOD within some of the vocalization and entry structure. Heavy slam riffs but with a simplistic progression so far. The cleaner vocals seem to fall flat however, with being over compressed. They should have let them breathe a bit. Right away, I can hear the bass is competing with the drum kicks being on the same frequency and thus, canceling the bass out a bit. Dropping their mids and highs a bit on the EQ could potentially fix this. So far not too bad of a start but needs improvements for sure.“A Pact Unholy” begins fast and heavy with a barrage of aggression and technicality that quickly picks up. There is a nice simple pig squeal that does the trick. However, again the mixing is slightly off. It tries to hit hard but falls flat. However a progressive melodic riff does ring out rather nicely over the low tuned guitar. Guitaring is a bit muddy and needs a tad cleaning up to really punch through. With simple chord progressions and the low tuning seems to want to compensate for the lack of bass. Mixing was missed on the bass a bit and should have had the track upped a bit on the eq. It lacks that solid heavy hit that it needed to really drive it home. Because of this lack of bass, it almost seems that the guitar is attempting to somewhat compensate for this. The mids and highs seem to be cranked which gives an overall flat and hollow tone. You can especially hear this with the cleaner vocals, not to mention being over compressed. With the highs being pumped, the fry screams come off a bit too much as well and some of the drumming a bit too. Perhaps it was overall mixing and mastering that overcompensated for lacking elements, I'm unsure. 

Then the tracks just seem to blend into one another without any real unique identity, they all basically sound very much the same. Which was disappointing. Seems almost recycled and lacks original identity, almost hollow in parts. The concept of the album sounded good on paper but they missed the mark on the execution. The potential is there for sure, but it just kinda fell short in production. Despite all of this, the deathcore element is there with a progressive tinged technicality that would be good to listen to once or twice. “Cold Dead Hands” does a decent job to close off the album with a nice slam death riff build up that leads into a progressive riff that rings out over the blaring sound. Overall, despite the mixes not sitting too well and the other elements mentioned. I would say this album would be decent to at least give a shot. COGNITIVE, I would still say is decent, but in my opinion, their latest album did fall a bit short for me. I would still recommend giving the album “Abhorrence” a chance.