Review Summary: Mutated.
If I say that a band releases a single prior to an album’s release, or that the band streams their full album a week or two in advance, no one panics; because it’s all part of the plan... But, when a band releases a collection of songs with no warning then everyone loses their minds!
And that’s exactly what reception has met Code Orange’s surprise EP,
The Hurt Will Go On”. Emphasised by the fact that they are now a hugely popular band, the premise of this release, and its content, only underlines the fact that Code Orange resides in the grey area between chaos and confusion. That’s not to say that the world of metal was not primed for an act such as this. Back in February, Code Orange released a new song called “Only One Way” less than a year after their highly successful album
“Forever” was unleashed quoting that: “[they planned] to release material on a more regular basis in an attempt to break down rock and metal’s formulaic pattern of long breaks between outputs”.
And so, Code Orange has surprised nearly everyone with a new 3-track EP, one that is equally a continuation of
“Forever” as it is a clue to what the future holds over the course of just two new songs, “3 Knives” and “The Hunt”. The former explodes into action with an urgent, confrontational deathcore riff, however, almost immediately after Code Orange exhibit their own contorted take on heavy music. Glitched effects and erratic electronics bombard the beefy riffs at uncalculated moments making it sounds like a deep scratch on a disc. Afterwards, clean vocals crop up at the end of the track, clashing the song’s appearance further with industrial shade of bleak grey and shiny neon. Alternately, the latter track starts with industrial effects and then bombards the electronics with jagged riffing and hostile vocals. Here, the electronics are more accurately dotted around, emphasising breakdowns, twisting riffs to sound even more chaotic and simply dismantling everyone’s preconception of what “okay, too much” actually constitutes as. Finally, remember how on
“Forever” there were random clips of daunting industrial clips cut into a number of songs? Well, the title track of this EP sounds essentially like all those snippets put together with incomprehensibly dark, echoed vocals. This isn’t genre-blending, this is a mutation.
Overall, this EP contains moments of greatness but is jarring to listen to. Nonetheless, a fitting statement to just how hugely popular Code Orange has become-and will continue to be- is that a high-profile artist such as Corey Taylor of Slipknot and Stone Sour can casually make an appearance on “The Hunt” and no one bats an eye at the prospect or pointlessness of it. The background concerning
The Hurt Will Go On” is its greatest strength of it: announces that Code Orange are hell-bent on breaking any unwritten rules in heavy music from what the music actually sounds like to when they release it. How much of ‘A Big Deal’ Code Orange can be is appears to be limitless.
