ALBUM REVIEW: Phantazein – Cognizance

Depending on which school of thought you subscribe to, a phantasm is a figment of our imagination that looks and feels like reality. Better yet, if you fancy a lesson in linguistics, it’s born from the Greek verb Phantazein, which is to present to the mind. And on the album of the same name by British tech-death unit COGNIZANCE, that’s exactly what they do: they present to the mind a body of work that lyrically and musically blurs the lines between fiction and reality. 

Whilst 2021’s Upheaval crushed all in its path with its brutal barrage of technical death metal, Phantazein evolves the band’s sound like a Digimon pill-popping their way through data. The frenetic freight train of blast beats, growls and neck-snapping grooves is still rolling along the track, however there’s an added level of accessibility, as the band embrace elements of melodic and blackened death metal.

Opener Ceremonial Vigour is just that, bludgeoning blast-beats and blizzarding basslines cave in your cranium as buzzsaw guitars cut through the fat with the swaggering groove the likes of LAMB OF GOD’s Mark Morton makes mincemeat out of. Follow-up A Brain Dead Memoir doesn’t dumb it down, blurring the lines between fiction and reality as bassist Chris Binns and drummer David Diepold construct mind numbingly complex structures, whilst guitarists Alex Baillie and Apostolis Karydis samurai slice their way through as melodic riffs skim the sea like stones, providing the relief of a deep sea diver coming up for air.

Whereas Upheaval excelled at perfecting the tech-death blueprint, Phantazein flourishes most when COGNIZANCE play mad scientists, tinkering and twisting the very DNA of a genre they’ve mastered. Take Introspection, which begins with the breakneck intensity of blast beats so brutal they’ll hammer nails into your hands, before giving way to a schizophrenic burst of free-flow jazz-like fills, before left-turning into a cacophony of noise, with vocalist Henry Pryce guiding you through this hell growl-by-growl like an unreliable narrator. 

Elsewhere, on Futureless Horizon, the band embrace IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT’s blizzarding blackened death, as solemn string plucking gives way to improvised drum fills, before the track corkscrews its way through a frenetic and ferocious rollercoaster ride designed to do damage to your insides.

By the time the formidable In Verses Unspoken and Shadowgraph stop the coaster and let you off, there’s no doubt left in your mind that COGNIZANCE should be crowned the undisputed kings of technical death metal with Phantazein.  

Rating: 9/10

Phantazein is set for release on January 26th via Willowtip Records.

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