Seventh album, 74 minutes, seven tracks: with Cogwheel, Bilbao’s Altarage deliver their most imposing record, a deconstructed death metal leaning towards Swans, Sunn O))) and Godflesh to depict « suffering and anger inside the cogwheel of transactional industry slavery ». And the press splits clean in two. Dead Rhetoric pulls a 9/10: « the most calculated and colossal album » of their career. Angry Metal Guy answers with a 2.5/5: « songs are overly long, riffs are obnoxiously repetitive, and the drone elements are an annoyance in place of actual music ».
The unsettling part is that both camps describe the same object. AMG itself hears a tone « like slowly being buried under liquid cement » and credits the band with « a well-thought-out artistic presentation » — where lesser hands would only show blemishes. No Clean Singing (Andy Synn, unscored) sides with the record: « a welcome – albeit purposefully demanding – return to form », where « amplifier-melting distortion » and anxiety-inducing drone become tectonic strengths.
The paradoxical consensus fits in one line: Cogwheel achieves exactly what it attempts — the question is whether you want to endure it. Score average: 7/10, with the most violent spread of the summer. An endurance record, for those who treat oppression as a feature.