Band:	Code
Album:	Nouveau Gloaming
Style:	Black metal, Progressive metal
Release date:	2005
A review by:	Undercraft

01. The Cotton Optic
02. Brass Dogs
03. An Enigma In Brine
04. A Cloud Formed Teardrop Asylum
05. Aeon In Cinders
06. Tyburn
07. Radium
08. Ghost Formula

Black Metal without corpsepaint? DEAR GOD!!

Nowadays is an interesting time for the Black Metal listener, in difference of some other genres, Black Metal is pushing boundaries and is becoming one of the most unpredictable and creative sub-genres of Metal. Is a good time to be a Blackster.

Of course, you'll have the obvious 4,527 boring, plain Black Metal releases from tr00 Kvlt bands from all over the world with their B&W cover arts, their inverted crosses, spikes and corpsepaint yada yada, sure! But once in a while a band is ought to surprise you. And why do I say is a good time to listen Black Metal?, because I think nowadays there are more chances to be surprised by a Black Metal Cd than a Power Metal one, to say it so.

This is exactly the case, these gentlemen called Code are, -at least for me- the new hope of Black Metal. Without exploring the Avant-garde terrain too much, Code manages to create a unique album, filled with dark passages and mysterious routes towards Avant-gardism.

Members from the UK and Norwegian Black Metal scene form the ranks of Code, when researching a little more abut the members I came across renowned names such as Ulver, Dødheimsgard (now DHG), Arcturus and Ved Buens Ende. If you're are fan of any of the after mentioned bands you know you can't expect nothing normal or traditional from Code.

And that's exactly the case with this album, while the first track "The Cotton Optic" might deceive some people to think that this is a traditional BM band, is exactly the opposite, the album doesn't rely on fast passages or blast beats to keep the listener interested, maybe only 2 songs "The Cotton Optic" and "Aeon In Cinders", the rest of songs are mid-paced dark tunes with a lot of clean singing, take for example "Tyburn" at one point I though I was listening to Arcturus, also the whole mood of "Brass Days" is quite eerie.

A release worthy of listening, I'll recommend this to any fan of Black Metal with deviations towards Avant-garde, is the perfect match, not too Black, not too Avant-garde. Now, who hide the corpsepaint from these guys?