I suppose there’s a decent argument to be made that nobody needs a review of this album, now nearly two full months after its release date. There’s also a reasonably solid argument to be made that nobody needs any review of any album ever in these information-oversaturated times, so I don’t see why I should let pesky issues of chronology alter that calculus of futility. And anyway, maybe you haven’t heard enough people shouting it loudly enough: Code’s third album Augur Nox is face-slappingly brilliant.
The hybrid Anglo-Norwegian band’s debut album Nouveau Gloaming came out at a time when there were plenty of other fellow travelers on the vaguely industrial but devoutly avant-garde black metal highway: Dodheimsgard and Void, most notably, but also Thee Maldoror Kollective, as well as the cyber-digressions of Abigor and the ever-present ghost of Thorns. By the time Resplendent Grotesque provided a follow-up, that territory was less well populated, even as the album ditched most of the lingering industrial touches, tightened up its attack, and dug ferally lucid hooks miles deep into any nearby flesh.
Augur Nox is Code’s first album following some major personnel shake-ups. Longtime bass player Vicotnik (also of DHG, Ved Buens Ende, and scads of other underground heroes) left the band, as did frontman – and vocal contortionist extraordinaire – Kvohst. Though Vicotnik’s departure certainly left the band with a much-reconfigured songwriting team, Code’s first two albums were such glittering successes because of the vocal charisma of Kvohst (which should be obvious to anyone who has also encountered the man in DHG, Hexvessel, and now Beastmilk). Thankfully, new singer Wacian more than ably acquits himself, enlivening the album with an equally impressive array of vocal styles, from far-distant black howls to reflective whispers, and from barked exhortations to a beautiful, almost soulful, quivering croon.
One of the most impressive aspects of Augur Nox is the amount of stylistic ground it is able to cover while always sounding like the same band, pursuing the same idea. Code works as a tightly coiled unit, unwinding and whipping around unforeseen corners with exploratory zeal. And yet their obsidian polished, effortlessly progressive black metal always feels natural, unforced, as it pings from the suitably dramatic opening of “Black Rumination” to the ridiculously catchy sing-along chorus of “Garden Chancery” to the post-punk dalliance of “Trace of God.” Still, the beating heart of the album is the brilliant pairing of “The Lazarus Chord” and “The Shrike Screw,” the former of which sees Wacian wailing his way through some of the ICS Vortex-iest vocals you’re ever likely to hear not from the Arcturus/Dimmu Borgir man himself.
From the outside, heavy metal often looks pretty dumb. Much of the time, that’s clearly done on purpose. But every now and again, after digging far and wide through this fertile artistic field, one encounters a band so ineffably smart that they make one reconsider all the time spent on caveman atavism. In Code’s case, those smarts aren’t telegraphed or brandished as braggartry; instead, they simply inhere to the immutable stuff that makes this band so singularly special. Plenty of bands bludgeon, and plenty of others finesse, but the really clever ones do both, and almost without you noticing. Give Augur Nox a whirl, and wait ‘til your head gets pulverized to fine powder at the impeccably nuanced double-tracked vocal climax of “White Triptych.”
Cherish a band like this, for we are unlikely to look upon their equal soon.
