ALBUM REVIEW: Under The Skin – Code Orange
It’s difficult to think of a band within the walls of heavy music who’ve had more of an impact in the last few years than CODE ORANGE. Forming as more of a straight-up punk band towards the end of the 2000s, the then-CODE ORANGE KIDS would soon change tact, ingraining themselves into the Pittsburgh hardcore scene with a string of well-received releases culminating with a name change and the Kurt Ballou-produced sophomore album I Am King, before finally rocketing to stardom off the back of the stunning and genre-redefining Forever in 2017; a vision they’d go on to further cement on this year’s Underneath.
Right as they were set to begin touring for that record however, fate took hold, and the band were faced with the prospect of their entire album cycle going up in smoke as the USA declared a state of national emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Remarkably undeterred, Jami Morgan and co. would in the span of the last six months or so, not only create the livestream series YOU AND YOU ALONE to keep themselves occupied, but also record a visually stunning live show in an empty venue for what would have been the launch of their tour in the form of Last Ones Left, as well as most recently aping the beloved MTV Unplugged format at the end of July for their own acoustic-style show, Under The Skin.
Of course, the CODE ORANGE we get on Under The Skin is a vastly different beast to that present on its’ predecessor. Stripped back in sound to a mostly-acoustic core of instrumentation, punctuated with occasional bursts of their trademark electronic noise from multi-instrumentalist Eric ‘Shade’ Balderose, this version of the band sits sonically in a far more grunge territory than their usual abrasive hardcore stomping grounds. Opener Bleeding In The Blur exhibits this well, fading in amidst an eerie soundscape, the driving distorted stomp of the original traded in for the foreboding atmosphere of sparse echoing acoustic guitars and a string section, as Reba Myers’ powerful vocals (arguably the star of the entire show) take centre-stage atop one of the band’s more conventionally instantaneous songs.
As introductions go, it’s a fairly straightforward, but a template that CODE ORANGE of course go on to expand upon greatly across Under The Skin’s 10 song runtime. Underneath is of course represented well throughout at just under half of the set, but the band’s other material provides some equally interesting reimagined takes accompanying it. Songs from Ugly from Forever and Only One Way, initially a standalone single for Adult Swim, here both take on slightly more of a grungey NIRVANA-esque feel with the distortion dialled way back from the original takes.
Easily the most stunning moment of Under The Skin though, comes in what at the time was arguably its’ most unexpected. Delving into the realm of cover songs can generally be a hit or miss affair for a lot of bands, but CODE ORANGE have never been a band to do things by halves, and decide to go for one of the MTV Unplugged era’s biggest guns – Down In A Hole by grunge titans ALICE IN CHAINS. Though playing it fairly straight to the original in a musical sense, the band nonetheless give a remarkable take on the haunting Layne Staley/Jerry Cantrell vocal interplay of AIC’s classic, delivering their own iconic unplugged moment in the process.
Following the brief interlude of (space), it’s then back to business as usual, as dreams 1+2 sees the Pittsburgh collective mashing up Forever cut Dream2 with its’ I Am King predecessor Dreams In Inertia; the result a split melding of melodic first half, gradually devolving into a seething mass of Morgan-fronted pent-up fury atop chugging guitars and Shade’s stabbing synth lines – the closest CODE ORANGE come to their usual full-force explosiveness across most of Under The Skin. It’s a welcome dose of heaviness, and one that’s really hammered home by the fact it fades as abruptly as it arrived, before leading into the menacing spoken word coda of (dr3am).
An almost victory lap-feeling final run of Sulfur Surrounding, Under The Skin (a truncated version of Underneath’s monolithic title track) and Hurt Goes On (here re-titled hurt 3) follows to bring things to a close, the tweaked arrangements again proving the versatility of CODE ORANGE‘s songwriting nous, even as the electric guitars return for the final two songs. The latter even manages to throw in a nerve-shredding surprise for the listener that we won’t spoil here, but suffice to say caps off Under The Skin in the most CODE ORANGE way imaginable.
Under The Skin, much like everything CODE ORANGE have done, will undoubtedly not be for everyone. Naysayers are unlikely to be converted by the prospect of the world’s most exciting heavy band going acoustic, whilst fans of the band at their most abrasive and destructive may similarly struggle to vibe with the MTV Unplugged stylings evident across the overwhelming majority of its’ runtime. Those entering with an open mind however, will find themselves privy to that rarest of things – a band wholly in control and aware of their own goals, much in the same way they did on Forever and Underneath once again confidently striding up to the rigid genre boundaries of their former scene and kicking them square in the jaw. Overwhelmingly confident in execution, Under The Skin is yet another astonishing notch for CODE ORANGE to add to their belt, and further affirmation that this is a collective willing and indeed more than able to go just about anywhere with their sound.
Rating: 10/10
Under The Skin is set for release on September 4th via Roadrunner Records.
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