There is a little piece of everyone in each song, something we didn’t have before…“

What is consciousness? By dictionary definition, we describe consciousness as a state of being awake and aware; the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world surrounding it. However, in psychoanalytic, philosophical, and neuroscientific circles, the concept of consciousness is a hotly debated issue under the terms of how it is both operated and used. How do the physical processes of the brain promote and preserve the self-aware mind and give rise to profound feelings of love, of hate; of happiness, of fear? Countless figures over time- Sigmund Freud, Aristotle, David Chalmers, Francis Crick, Adina Roskies, and a plethora of other well-accredited individuals-have tirelessly circled the aspect of consciousness like sharks, sporting theories that range from functionalism to physicalism; mind-body dualism to epiphenomalism- each sub-theory to attempt to better answer our uniquely human property of consciousness.

Such is the debate that Kent, England outfit Cove has decidedly driven head-first into with their brand new EP A Conscious Motion. Poignant and powerful, the band sports a penchant for passion upon the topic, with lyrical inspiration stemming from a dualist point of introspection and extrospection. As such, the album takes a hard-hittingly reckless, yet somber tonality, enveloped in an overarching eerie wall of soundscape. To describe A Conscious Motion as hair-raising is to do it no justice; daringly and glaringly unsettling, Cove’s EP is a mind-bending whirlwind of brooding, integral complexity so perturbing that it could be mistaken as its own DID in the forthcoming DSM-VI.

Today, we have the pleasure of presenting the exclusive track-by-track commentary of A Conscious Mind, authored by the band themselves. As always, a full album stream is embedded below to better aid and abet your audio-visual experience, courtesy of Spotify. Read on; listen on; enjoy!

“Coincide: Collide”

This was the last track to be written for the EP. The song went through multiple variations before we “Frankensteined” it into what it is now, experimenting with a few different structures before we settled on the final version of the song. After talking through lyrical ideas we knew we wanted to do something different to what we had done before in terms lyrical inspiration and also the delivery and style of the vocals. The themes tackled in all of our music are deeply personal and this one is no exception: it deals with losing loved ones, not always literally, but sometimes through distance or other illnesses other than physical. The song has a very eerie tone to it- something we’d never done before- and was a great chance to explore Ben’s clean singing, which we had spoken about prior to recording this song. It has all the elements that we had wanted to push further, so we felt like it was a great song for a first single; we kind of threw everyone into the deep end with it.

“Solis”

“Solis” is definitely a song that is very special to us. It was the first song that featured Ben on vocals and was a turning point for the band. We had written “Solis” and “All I Believe” around the same time with a group of other songs, but these two were the strongest and made the cut. We knew we wanted to take what we had done on our last EP and amplify it, make it sound bigger and write more chorus-based songs as opposed to 4 minutes of riffs and screaming. We’d spoken before about trying to include more melody in our music and this song really bridges the gap between the roots of what the band was and what we are trying to achieve now.

“All I Believe”

“All I Believe” is a song about self-reflection, being able to look at the good and the dark parts of yourself, recognise them and accept them. The song was written at the same time as “Solis” and is probably the softest song we have in our catalogue so far, but [it] still packs a punch. We had demoed the song before, but slightly changed it instrumentally when it came to recording the real thing. The only thing that didn’t change was the lyrics. The first time we heard the lyrics for this track from Ben, we were all stoked about them- in particular, the first verse with the intimate clean singing. This song was also written in the mindset of we wanted to write more dynamic songs, the quiet, melodic parts being really gentle and the heavy parts blowing your head off.

“Host”

We’ve always been a fan of interludes/intros into tracks on records. We wanted to write something that breaks up the EP and can also be used in the set. On A Conscious Motion, it’s the first time we’ve used more than one tuning, so having “Host” to be able to be played live whilst we change tunings makes our live show a lot more seamless.

“Reflect:Resolve”

“Reflect:Resolve” is our most collaborative effort to date. The song has parts written by everyone in the band and draws lyrical influence from every member. The main riff had been written for a while but once we had taken it to the rehearsal room, guitarist Ben Brazier came up with the end section. We’re all fans of different styles of music, particularly post-rock, which definitely has a strong influence on the end of this track. The song was inspired by the imagery of ashes drifting through the air from a fire- that’s where the lyrics “drag me through burning ashes” originated from- and deals with the themes of what happens to us after death, in particular, the choices we make in what we want to happen with our bodies once we have died.