MIND OVER DEPTH

Cosmograf, the project masterminded by British multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer Robin Armstrong. He has been very busy in the last decade, releasing six studio albums under this moniker. The sound of Cosmograf is rooted in 70s progressive and hard rock with Armstrong's own twist which gives this band a very intriguing personality.

'Mind Over Depth', the latest addition in his catalogue, is absolutely bombastic. It is an album that is shocking in the most positive of ways, intertwining within itself a blend of heavy prog, heavy metal, and electronica, thus deviating this record from the Neo-prog label. This is much more of a Heavy prog album, if we have to speak in sub-genres.

A concept album exploring the dark places in which the human mind can go, with quite moving, very introspective and introverted lyrics. But maybe I should quote Armstrong himself who explains the album thusly: 'Everything going on in our minds ' every thought, feeling, sensation, everything we are aware of ' is in fact happening only in our private internal worlds. Our reality is defined by the attention we give to these thoughts and the negative ones can inevitably lead to us feeling out of our depth''.

The strong lyrical content, of course, complements the incredible music here. It would not be wrong to draw comparisons with Porcupine Tree, with all the crushing riffs topped by passages of electronica, melodic and catchy choruses, and adventurous song build-ups. Another superlative to this album is its length ' Armstrong managed to keep it quite tight, containing five songs within 45 minutes of music. This results in very convincing compositions, giving a strong feel that there are no wasted notes.

Overall, this is an excellent album that grew quickly on me when I first heard it. Cosmograf is certainly one of the more interesting modern British progressive rock acts and this powerful album is the very proof.