A Dream If Ever There Was One (Album 2022)
Chaos Over Cosmos
Progressive Metal / Technical Melodeath
About a year after „The Silver Lining Between the Stars“, a new album takes us up the sky. Wild at heart and not taking any prisoners, the tech-death saga of the duo from Poland and the US that has never met continues.
Rafal Bowman and KC Lyon aka Chaos Over Cosmos have crafted six new songs plus reimagined four as bonus tracks. On the cover, they stick with their futuristic style topically. It shows a dystopian city making think of „Blade Runner“ or „Halo“, reading „A Dream If Ever There Was One“ in the already known typography.
A voice like at a public transport station counts in, and the fast trip starts. It feels like musical ADHD, where the energy just comes naturally and has to be set free. It’s atmosphere to blow up ears, with amazingly lot happening, having Prog orientation from Baroness but soundtrack intents like Carpenter Brut.
The title „Fire-Eater“ reminds of early childhood circus memories. A cool riff on full speed, greatly arranged with duel- and clean singing, kind of SOAD and CroworD with the Groove of DevilDriver, Machine Head or MTMM and even some Testament. An early highlight, but CoC won’t back down. „Navigating by Moonlight“ could be a suiting opener too, with Keaton Lyon on guest vocals, creating suspense.
Again the relation between vocals and instrumental parts is right, shifting from epic Power Heavy Metal to even a little Black Metal feeling. „A Mantra of Oppression“ with its kind of Sprechgesang reminds of Joey Jordisons’ Scar The Martyr or Wednesday 13s Murderdolls plus „If you want peace… prepare for war“. The smoothly controlled chaos in it is simply fantastic, and it ends with some spacey sounds.
„Ebb and Flow[ers]“ could take us to the North or Baltic Sea, makes you dream and disturbs you at the same time. Another awesome headbanger, that would make the audience escalate at the break, and reusing parts from the outstanding „One Hundred“ with Linkin Park flavour.
After the outro it is clear, Chaos Over Cosmos have perfected and focused their wild energy like before. And the only thing, that is a pity, is that they are ‚only‘ a studio project and don’t appear live.