ALBUM REVIEW: The Above – Code Orange

CODE ORANGE haven’t ever done things by halves. After pushing the boundaries of hardcore with both their previous albums, but especially 2020’s Underneath that embraced glitchy nu-metal, electronics and flecks of grunge, it felt like they were on the cusp of a huge breakout moment. Obviously that didn’t happen; so the band have regrouped, retooled themselves and are once again putting absolutely everything on the line – again. The Above is going to further fuel those accusing them of “selling out”, but frankly, it’s that bloody good that even if that were true, it wouldn’t matter one iota. 

Opener Never Far Apart clanks into view, an industrial, contorted soundscape with Jami Morgan’s distorted voice menacing ears. It’s counterbalanced by an airy melody from guitarist/vocalist Reba Meyers. It’s CODE ORANGE, sure, but not as we’ve heard them before, until it ends on a vicious breakdown. The band balance these various sides of themselves and influences deftly throughout the album, creating something that’s easily the most cohesively realised vision of CODE ORANGE yet. Theatre Of Cruelty is looped, manipulated drums to start before descending to belligerent beatdown hardcore, all angular guitar and battering ram drumming. 

Elsewhere they lean much harder into nu-metal than they have before, with the immensely catchy Take Shape drawing on KORN in its driving groove and alt rock legend Billy Corgan popping up for a vocal interlude midway through. CODE ORANGE reach for far more commercial sounds, sure, but it’s backed up by muscular riff work like on the storming The Mask Of Sanity Slips. Mirror is CODE ORANGE as we’ve truly never heard them, embracing trip-hop beats and synth far more for a song that feels like grungy nu-metal, and manages to stick the landing of that strange combination.

It’s hard to pin down every single reference point on The Above. There’s simply so many of them, the band having truly thrown open the floodgates of influences from nu-metal and hip-hop to electronic music and industrial, and stretched their metallic hardcore base well past breaking point. There’s the explosive blitz of Grooming My Replacement, the skittering I Fly that breaks out into anthemic, gritty hard rock, or penultimate song But A Dream… whose towering chorus sung by Meyers is also backdropped by swaying bassline verses that are destined for huge arenas or perhaps even another WWE entrance. 

There’s simply too much going on to accurately be summed up, or to find even across one, five, even ten listens. The Above takes what CODE ORANGE already did, every part of their DNA, and radically rearranges it in bold new forms. For a band that pushed the boundaries of their hardcore and metal roots by incorporating industrial glitch and grind, this is a fearless leap into the unknown, and it almost entirely pays off. Its bold opening gambit of Never Far Apart and industrial-tinged closing title track bookend an album that covers all the familiar touchstones, but they’re rearranged in bold new forms, twisted and convoluted, but never anything other than CODE ORANGE at their most adventurous, and fearless. 

Rating: 8/10

The Above is set for release on September 29th via Blue Grape Music.

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