Review by Sonny for Mare Cognitum - An Extraconscious Lucidity (2012)

Mare Cognitum is a solo project of Californian, Jacob Buczarski, one-time member of shoegaze band Spirit Lapse. He plays atmospheric black metal with a cosmic bent. This is his second release under the Mare Cognitum banner, following 2011's debut, The Sea Which Has Become Known and features six tracks spread over 50 minutes. The opener (and the album's longest track at twelve minutes), Collapse Into Essence, is epic, galactic-scale atmospheric black metal, reflecting the vast coldness of space and the uncaring, all-powerful forces that exist there, both actual and metaphorical. Second track, Pyre of Ascendance, is more of a traditional atmospheric black metal blastathon, harsh and savage, as are the remainder of the tracks. Sure, there are hints of it, but the epic-scale, truly cosmic sound of MC's later releases is still in development on this release, the majority being very well done, but somewhat derivative, atmo-black. Not a bad album at all - I always enjoy well done atmospheric black metal - but he gets better as he gets more ambitious.