Band:	Code Orange
Album:	The Above
Style:	Punk, Hardcore, Metalcore
Release date:	September 29, 2023
A review by:	omne metallum

01. Never Far Apart
02. Theatre Of Cruelty
03. Take Shape [feat. Billy Corgan]
04. The Mask Of Sanity Slips
05. Mirror
06. A Drone Opting Out Of The Hive
07. I Fly
08. Splinter The Soul
09. The Game
10. Grooming My Replacement
11. Snapshot
12. Circle Through
13. But A Dream…
14. The Above

You want to do what to your replacement?

Despite my enjoyment of hardcore, I can't say Code Orange have ever truly clicked for me in the way that they appear to have done for others, given their regular touting as one of the brightest stars in the latest wave of hardcore bands. Giving the band another go with their latest The Above, it certainly feels like a good entry point for those as yet unconvinced by their prior work. Co-opting the nu metal revival sound into their formula, Code Orange have decided to play with fire, and luckily for them, didn't get burnt, with the gamble mostly paying off on The Above. It makes for an album with plenty of twists and turns, some for the better and some for the worse. This experimentation takes various sonic guises throughout the album, creating a diverse collection of tracks.

Experimentation is perhaps the key word to describe The Above, an album that sounds like controlled chaos, going from the Korn-meets-Dope of "Grooming My Replacement" to the atmosphere and esoterics of "Mirror", plus songs like "The Mask Of Sanity Slips" that fall somewhere in-between (with a healthy dose of Visions Of Disorder throughout). Still, to say that Code Orange are a melting pot of a wide variety of influences and sounds is to sell the band short; they manage to inject plenty of their own personality into proceedings.

Somehow making coherent sense out of this all, the production work on The Above does manage to balance the disparate and competing sonic elements that are scattered across each individual track, let alone the whole album. "Splinter The Soul" is a microcosm of the left-field sounds that are balanced in the mix, and the various atmospherics and moods that permeate throughout.

Picking a favourite track is likely to depend on which element of this multifaceted album appeals to you most. "I Fly" has a killer hook courtesy of the vocal interplay between Meyers and Morgan, and an industrial-meets-grunge vibe that makes for an instant earworm, while "Circle Through" is the hardcore-meets-nu metal crossover that has been missing since Eighteen Visions dropped off the radar. It is one of those albums where finding consensus as to what the best tracks are, is going to be a similar experience to herding cats.

Perhaps the biggest issue with The Above is the length of it; with a runtime of 51 minutes, it does feel overlong even before the album finishes. While the album doesn't meld together and each song maintains its own identity, the impact does diminish towards the end of the album, leading to a recordthat is best enjoyed in portions, rather than one near-hour-long experience.

Code Orange took a gamble with The Above, and it is one that has largely paid off for the band, resulting in an album that will broaden the appeal of the band without detaching from their core fanbase. While the mix of hardcore and nu metal is likely to make some sceptical on the surface of it, it is a leap of faith that will likely pay off for those who give it a chance.