Mare Cognitum - Phobos Monolith (2014)

Where a band like Darkspace explores the 'cosmic' aspects of black metal through sheer nihilism and oppression, there are others who approach the subject matter with a little more elegance and dynamic range. Chief among these atmospheric astronauts is Californian Jacob Buczarski, aka Mare Cognitum, who has lain somewhere beneath the radar only in so much that he's drifting so far beyond the satellite range that it's often difficult to pick his signal out among the stars. That's not to say he's advocating the most unique or experimental brand of black metal, for a lot of his writing has traits in common with the melodic European sect that went viral in the mid 90s...but like label mate Ayloss and Spectral Lore, he gifts us with a more colorful and balanced glimpse at the universe, at the colors of fields of celestial bodies burning and inert, at the nebulas unleashing a spectrum of beauty across the universe. No wonder the two bands chose to release their split album Sol together, a recording that had me primed for Jacob's next full-length solo offering...which has arrived in the autumn of 2014.

Four tracks of fulfilling, melodic black metal saturated with resonant rasps, intense drum patterns and enough tempo and rift-shifting moments to fill out their oft-staggering durations, generally beyond the 13 minute mark. At once, there is little 'new' to how he puts these progressions together: floods of tremolo picked, somber riffs layered together to create an intense, often desperate sense of beauty, like an expedition through space which encounters periods of turbulence and danger; in particular captured through the speed of "Entropic Hallucinations", the album's shorter, 8 minute piece. Against these we are presented with more solemn, introspective passages where the frenzy of the beats drops to a steadier, magnificent pace and the individual strings of the guitars are slung into lavishly picked harmonies that flesh out the slower overall rhythm ("Noumenon"), and there are also some periods of lush interstellar ambiance like the excellent intro to the 15+ minute finale "Ephemeral Eternities" which absolutely feel like one beholden to an alien landscape...a cerebral scoring that generated images of an astronaut on some lifeless moon staring unto infinity, so good that I wish there had been a higher ratio of the pure ambient tinkering measured against the metallic material. Fortunately, the songwriting is scripted well enough that Buczarski never dwells on any one riffing structure or tempo for them to ever wear out their welcome...

...some new melody is always being woven forth, and thus the album becomes much like that surreal space tunnel which bridges the two (uneven) 'halves' of 2001: A Space Odyssey, a funnel of color through which the unknown-yet-suspiciously-familiar awaits us all. Buczarski's rasps and growls remind us of the eminent, imminent hostility of the emptiness as it presses in on all of us, here on our fragile eggshell of a world, but the Phobos Monolith as a whole serves as a symbol of space's eternal beauty, regardless of how much it is touched by the manifest destiny, or 'stain' of humanity, relative to how you personally view the gradual transmigration of our species. It's not so much that the man has uncovered some entirely new form of language in the genre, which anyone with even a cursory history with black metal will tell you when listening to these riffs, but more that he's taking the quality and integrity of that 90s approach, when the style hadn't yet been victim to endless cycles of derivation, and giving it berth on a rocket ship, hurtling towards some distant galaxy where it might be shared with some other race. Like the ethereal, ascending figures on its covers, it's out of here, man, on a one way trip to the infinite. Would it have left more of an impact with me if it the theme had been imbued with a more distinctly bizarre, left of center musical approach? Absolutely, but Mare Cognitum's third album is nonetheless a thoroughly engaging, memorable sojourn beyond the sky, the product of a consistent and welcome voice in USBM.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10]

https://www.facebook.com/MareCognitumMusic

Spectral Lore/Mare Cognitum - Sol (2013)

There certainly exists a pantheon of 'great' split recordings throughout the expanded metalverse, but normally the format presents me with a bit of a quandary. Are these just two or more bands of the same genre being haphazardly slapped together? Because they are friends? Pen pals? Are they covering one another? Was this just a label's idea with a few favors being called in? It's not really my favorite means of ingesting music, but once in a while there will come a team-up which seeks to further the medium by providing a cohesive and consistent experience that feels more like a direct collaboration, and Sol is just such an experience, a dramatic and emotionally ebullient immersion into cosmic, atmospheric black metal that persists for 70 fucking minutes...

I was actually familiar going into this recording with both of the constituent artists. Spectral Lore's latest full-length Sentinel was a game changer among Greek black metal works, and though my reaction to Mare Cognitum's sophomore An Extraconscious Lucidity was more reserved, I still appreciated the potential here for a usurper to the ambient/black throne of fellow Californians Leviathan and Xasthur. Both are one man acts, which might have helped them ease this into a singular experience; for while you'll pick up a few of the distinct traits of each artist, they've done a superb job here of unifying their songwriting into a seamless expression of otherworldly resonance interjected with spurts of incendiary metallic techniques like blast beats, wretched star-extinguishing snarls and roiling, tremolo picked rhythm guitars which do not belie their Scandinavian influences (Emperor, etc). Synthesizers and soundscapes are in abundance, as one might have predicted, and they're used for both melodic lines to enhance the other instruments, and cosmic waves of careening harmony that thrive on their lonesome.

What I found interesting was the sequence here, with each act contributing a nearly 30 minute track, and then pairing up for shorter, purely ambient finale "Red Giant" which is structurally the simplest of the three, but no less poignant or brilliant. "Ouroboros" and "Medius" each have a lot more dynamic architecture to them, and are quite intimidating, but it was this last, soothing track that truly gelled over the experience. That said, both Jacob and Ayloss prove themselves independent forces with myriad instrumental skills, shifting riff formations that mirror their respective solo works. "Ouroboros" is slightly more substantial, with wider contrasts of calm and intensity that fluctuate between black and death metal progressions; while "Medius" has a lot more of that harmonic discharge and raw intensity to the guitars which is redolent of Sentinel, though undeniable a more ambitious format. The production felt a little cleaner for the first tune, but apart from that it would be impossible to choose a favorite, since they complement one another so well...like stars streaking in tandem through a nebula of loss and regret.

Admittedly, not all of the individual riffs were that inspirational, which is why it is so crucial that they balanced in the clouds of murk and void atmosphere; but there were certainly some uplifting moments in which the guitars, vocals and arrangements erupted into a glorious crescendo like an astral leviathan rising out of some spiral galaxy. Star-whales striding the space-lanes, mother fucker! The compositions aren't quite so nihilistic as something like Darkspace, instead balancing a brightness or celestial bodies against the suffocating vacuum between them, but that's exactly why I enjoyed this so much, because at each intersection I could never guess precisely where the floods of notes were going, and its held up for over four full listens as of this review, a laborious love letter to a universe which will has birthed us as surely as it will crush us.

Verdict: Win [8.75/10]

http://spectrallore.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/MareCognitumMusic