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Cognizance - Biography


Biography

Cognizance is a British extreme metal outfit established in the spring of 2012. The project was born when founding members Alex Baillie and Henry Pryce began to write and record a modern sounding death metal EP. Taking elements from other styles within the genre, Cognizance have been able to create their own diverse brand of death metal which fuses memorable melodic passages with virtuoso technical musicianship.

The founding members wrote, engineered and recorded all of the music besides drums for their debut EP Inquisition released 1/2/13. The drums were written and performed by Alex Rudinger (ex-The Faceless, Conquering Dystopia), he recorded the four tracks at his home studio in Maryland USA. Once completed the EP was then mixed and mastered in Canada by Sacha Laskow at Perfect Fifth Audio Architects.

Inquisition was self-released 1/2/13 and received an outstanding reception from fans across multiple sub-genres of metal, which quickly allowed Cognizance to gain exposure within the scene.

Immediately following the release of Inquisition, Cognizance quickly wrote and recorded another two songs in the spring of 2013, which were to be released as a demo. The aim of this demo was to further explore the sound that the band could produce and push the envelope of modern death metal. This demo became widely known as the Speed Metal Demo.

The recording process of the demo saw some personnel changes. For this release, the legendary French Romain Goulon (Necrophagist, Nufutic) took the position behind the drums and recorded the tracks at his home studio. The songs "Assemblage Of Ancient Authority" and "Deep Geological Disposal" will also be featured on Romain's upcoming drum tuition DVD which is set to be released late 2014. Besides a change in drummer, the Cognizance 2014 demo was also mixed and mastered by different engineers. Eyal Levi and John Douglass mixed the CD at Audiohammer Studios in Florida, while mastering duties were handled by Alan Douches.

The Cognizance demo was self-released 1/1/14 in hard copy through the bands online store and digital format, which was free of charge via Bandcamp. The demo received an overwhelming response (particularly in America and Europe) and has allowed the band to establish themselves a seriously strong upcoming British Metal act.

Shortly after the release of the 2014 Cognizance demo, the band announced the addition of bass player Phil Archbold (XisForEyes). The joining of Phil saw the band quickly flow into the recording process of another CD. In May 2014, critically acclaimed producer Eyal Levi (Reflections, The Contortionist, Last Chance To Reason) came to record the bands two new singles "The Succession Of Flesh" and "Aeon Of Creation". Alongside this Tommy Jones of Videohammer Studios (Testament, Suffocation, Coal Chamber) came to film and produce a documentary of the recording process. Cognizance also saw the return of Alex Rudinger who recorded drums for the singles with Eyal Levi at his studio in Sanford Florida. These singles formed the late 2014 EP _Inceptum , another self-released EP released 22nd December.