COG, Sunk Loto and Mammal @Selinas, Sydney (14/10/06)

Thu 19th Oct, 2006 in Gig Reviews

My major mistake was forgetting the cardinal law of Selina’s (of The Famous Coogee Bay Hotel). ‘Thy shall not bother to turn up when we say doors open.’ The doors finally cracked 45 minutes and a considerable line of agitated punters later. Local boys COG (local as in the next suburb) had drawn more than just a tidy little crowd. They would be supported by Melbourne act Mammal and the Gold Coast’s Sunk Loto.

Mammal broke the seal on the night’s happenings. Unfortunately, I found the band came off as bombastic and over-the-top, with the antics of Ex-Full-Scale singer Ezekiel Ox appearing (posing, crotch-thrusting) twisted in the wrong kind of way. They did improve musically somewhat over their set, but with shirts off and arses still parked on the mediocre side of average, I remained unimpressed.

Next up were metal/rock four-piece Sunk Loto. The band have been out of the music scene’s beady gaze for some time now, and many of the punters seemed curious as to what had befallen them. Honestly, using their sound on disc as a guide, I didn’t even recognise their sound. Onstage, they cut a vastly different aural landscape; they project a much heavier sound, the lyrics becoming almost indecipherable (almost to the point of hard-core obscurity) and seem to be pulling away from their earlier style at a rate of knots. Sadly, I felt like they were disappearing beneath the waves of musical heaviness.

After two such disappointing acts, I was eager for COG to disinfect the stage with their own brand of progressive journey-making. The guys hit the stage with a rollicking Anarchy OK to a warm welcome on all sides; after all, it is their home turf. Ear-catching was the sublime Run which features an intro with a didgeridoo-like sample and spine-tingling guitar tones blending together seamlessly. The effect is mesmerising. The crowd-pleaser of the night had to be their stunning version of Silence is Violence, though COG are not the kind of band who have only one ‘standout’ in their set. Nearly every song was a winner, dragging the listener through swampy, echoing vocals and strong guitar parts. They are skilled at harnessing clever and subtle samples and vocal filtering techniques to produce a sound that sounds more like five or six people are playing, rather than three.

Singer/guitarist Flynn Gower likes to provide social comment in between churning out the good stuff, and this night was no different. He spoke about the evils of corporate globalisation, explaining how ‘Everything is becoming the same, generic bullshit. Soon you won’t be able to go anywhere without a McDonalds or a KFC or a computer shop. We need to keep things fucking different!’ This fits in perfectly with the band’s musical ethic, and as anyone who knows anything about Aussie music can attest, there’s nothing around quite like Bondi’s COG.

This tour is their farewell of sorts to their first LP, The New Normal. (They are also farewelling Australia for a while as the go to record their second LP in the US.) You get the feeling this is an end of an era for COG. Best of luck to the boys, we wait with bated breath for the next chapter!

Check out the photos from the gig here