CHECK OUT ALL THE PHOTOS HERE.

After witnessing both Karnivool and Cog this year, it’s no longer a dilemma to judge which one of Australia’s two biggest prog-rock monsters takes the crown… It’s Cog, by the way. What boggles the mind even more-so is that this is a mere three-piece – an astounding fact when taking into consideration the mammoth sound the Bondi boys produce. It’s thunderous, it’s loud, it’s chaotic as all-fuck, and yet all the while, it’s quite possibly the tightest-sounding live band to have hit the Aussie stages in years.

Kicking off tonight’s proceedings is the ever-colossal Doors – an interesting song of choice to start the evening with simply due to its epic factor. And man, is it epic: 10-15 minutes later and frontman Flynn Gower is still crooning ever so huskily “In time I will/change”… Not for a second, however, does the almost-capacity crowd at The Gov take its captivated glare off the singer, and it’s pretty much the case for the rest of the hour that follows. This is what sets Cog apart from their lesser counterparts – each song may be an odyssey in itself (and then some), but never does it bore or get tedious, despite the fact that Flynn and band don’t actually do anything at all onstage. Really – they just play.

Judging from the punters’ reaction, it’s My Enemy that takes the cake as tonight’s highlight – crowd-surfing up the front and all. Even though the band manages to squeeze in a handful of newer tracks from second album Sharing Space, nothing still seems to resonate quite as strongly as songs from debut album The New Normal. Still, Are You Interested? and No Other Way incite plenty of head-banging during the former, and enthusiastic foot-tapping during the latter.

Cog’s gift is a penchant for incredible hooks that fail to get their claws out of your brain long after the show is over. Intelligent, intense lyrics also help a lot from a fan’s perspective. But most importantly, the band excels in exactly replicating its studio sound onto the live stage, something that only few learn to master in time. For Cog, it’s been 12 years, to be precise, and the fact that the band continues to draw larger and larger crowds with each visit means the guys are probably not going away for quite some time yet.

CHECK OUT ALL THE PHOTOS HERE.

That said, however, the much-hoped-for encore would’ve been nice – tit-for-tat, right?