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Nouveau Gloaming

Equilibrium Music

I love chemistry. Band chemistry, that is. It's a fabulous thing that can produce some truly unique creations. Case in point, <Code>. No, that's not a glitch in your browser, that's the full name of the band. With cover art that makes the band look like a pseudo-industrial band of some sort (I have no idea how, but I get that feeling), I must say I was wary.

I was pleasantly surprised. You see, apparently the guys in <Code> are from the following bands: Void, DHG, Ved Buens Ende and Ulver. Surprise, surprise huh?

Claiming to be an new movement in Black Metal, <Code> delivers a beast of an album, that is not only heavy as hell on a blistering hot day, but is infused with very surreal and sometimes beautiful segments of psychedelic quasi-metal and seemingly hypnotic avant-garde, and all topped off with some extremely creative vocal arrangements.

The only complaint that I have really is the vocals. While it may be entirely possible that <Code> wanted the vocals to turn out as they did, I feel that the vocals are a tad out of feel with the rest of the music at times, and there really isn't any outstanding vocal performances going on, that's for sure. That said though, in the context of the music, which often goes into weird, depraved sounds, the vocals work quite well to create a somewhat sickeningly hypnotic atmosphere that is actually quite good to listen to!

Ryan Sequeira