Cog @ Hi-Fi Bar Saturday 9 June:

After an excellent set from the post-rock outfit Laura, the stage was set for Flynn Gower, Lucius Borich, and Luke Gower - collectively known as the Bondi based alternative rock band - Cog. The sampled playback of rolling thunder accompanied by strobe lighting set the tone for their opening song, “Doors,” one of the longer cuts from the band’s debut album. They then slipped effortlessly into the burly drive of “My Enemy,” “Real Life,” and finished with an extended drum solo from the virtuosic Lucius Borich before finally speaking to an excited crowd.

Anticipation has loomed large for Cog’s ‘Boomerang’ Tour. The boys spent five months in the USA, writing and recording the follow-up to their 2005 piece, The New Normal. Squeezing three new songs into their set was - as vocalist/guitarist Flynn Gower noted - a deliberate attempt to road-test the new material before refining their studio-bound renditions. The fourth song of the evening being one such track tentatively titled “Swamp Weed.” Its combination of heavy drumming and distorted guitar, along with other new songs “Double Triple” and “What If”, indicating a more direct heavy rock sound and structure from a band typified by their clouding of such stereotypes. They were far from disappointing but it was clear they were still testing the water. Still they got a rousing reception and the attention they deserved in juxtaposition to older crowd favourites such as “Open Up” and “Bondi”.

New material aside, the band is still an amazing proposition in the flesh, the three members’ complimentary sound and complex arrangements more than making up the sum of their parts. It was easy to see they were enjoying it also, bassist Luke Gower in particular. The only criticism would have to be they allowed a lot of down-time between songs, only occasionally blanketed by stage banter. At one point, Gower talked about the inception of one of the new songs only for an audible member of the crowd to shout “Just fucking play the song.” The lack of an encore too was most puzzling, many punters simply waiting for a return that never came. Still these moments are understandable considering the amount of energy and raw power that goes into Cog’s music, the majority of which runs at 6 minutes plus.

Highlights included a thunderous run-through of “Anarchy OK” and the euphoric intensity of “The Spine,” with its paced structure of slow build up to the ecstatic climax of distorted guitars receiving a wave of moshing and head-banging by an appreciative audience. The feeling was mutual as a sweaty Gower thanked the venue in acknowledgement of their tenth anniversary and gushed about how good it felt to be “back home.” Cog’s fanbase and musical following can only grow with the release of their new album, especially if it is accompanied by a tour of this set’s quality