Technical death metal crushers Cognitive are back with a new release, Abhorrence, their debut for Metal Blade Records. This is their fifth album and the follow-up to 2021’s breakthrough, Malevolent Thoughts of a Hastened Extinction. The New Jersey band are known for their progressive songwriting, and this new record is no exception. We talked with guitarist Rob Wharton about their new record, dropped last month, and the process behind it.
Can you start by telling us a little about the writing and recording process for the album and if it differed from the previous four?
The record was pretty much done the way we always do it; when it’s between tours, it’s time to start writing riffs for the record and just see what comes out. I don’t think we approached anything differently, other than being harder on ourselves about the quality of the songs, and just making sure everything connected more. We were harder on each other, and I think we really pushed the vocals in a new direction because we have some clean singing on the record, which we haven’t really had before.
Lyrically, I know you’ve previously mentioned this record is all over the place, with songs about video games and songs that are really serious and reflective of real life. How did the lyric writing process end up creating so much diversity?
When we went int this record, we didn’t have anything in mind for a specific theme and kind of let things come up organically. There are video game lyrics on there, but they’re not blatantly, just something you’d notice if you’re a nerd like us and get the references. There’s also stuff on there about anxiety and depression, the pressure of everyday life and just trying to get ahead. So I feel like everything is pretty honest and from-the heart-even the video game stuff.
Is there anything specific about this record that you want highlight?
I love the record, I love how the artwork came together, and I have to shout out Pedro Sena for doing an awesome job because we didn’t tell him what to draw; we just told him to draw whatever he wanted. I really love the art and I was worried it would be be too weird for everyone else, but everybody else loves it to. And I’m just really excited for how the whole thing came together.
