Codex — The Peace Paradox
Scandinavian progressive power metal band Codex have just released this first album, an independent release titled "The Peace Paradox", available through bandcamp and elsewhere. All members of this band except the vocalist were previously in bands called Warchitect and Skeletor, about which little information can be found.
Starting with the good, Ingmar Otter's guitar playing and riffwriting is wonderful throughout the album. Songs like "Legacy" have fantastically multifaceted pensive riffs that reveal clever rhythmic arrangement as they repeat. The music is classically Scandinavian, incorporating generous amounts of inspiration from the symphonic death metal greats like In Flames and At the Gates as well as the classic older metal it more closely imitates. Guitarist looking for juicy harmonized runs, sweeps and solos will certainly find them hear, and Otter's tone is an electrifyingly bright and juicy shred that has oft been called the "Gothenburg sound". Mid-paced thrash chug is also used where appropriate. It sounds somewhat like Chuck Schuldiner's Control Denied project, a memory of classic metal examined after the fact by modern musicians.
The drumming is also quite solid, perfectly tight with the guitar playing and effortlessly tasteful. This isn't a metal album with an overpoweringly dense sound, as it seems double bass kicks are hardly used, and when they are, they aren't mixed so loud as with a lot of modern metal. The most noticable element of the drumming are thunderous fills that accompany each expertly played segue passage.
The vocals and lyrics are unfortunately both tedious and laughable; I can only describe them as an attempt at political commentary with a sing-songy King Diamond cadence. The entire album is full of attempts at an 80's power wail as found in "Operation: Mindcrime" or Judas Priest's albums, but the singer's voice is not up to the task, and it's no exaggeration to say every note on the album is painfully offkey. There are numerous attempts at harmonies that are also woefully out of tune. This is frustrating, as its clear the singer Rhoden knows what the melody is meant to be, but his breath fails him. A little chorus would have helped, too; the vocals seem to stick out like a sore thumb.
The obnoxiously preachy lyrics to "Social Pressure" were enough to make me turn the album off in disgust, on first listen. "Welcome now, to a party of fun" begins the singer in a gravelly, muffled telephone voice, not quite possessing the charisma for the sarcastic / satirical message. It turns out to be a vague criticism of festival culture that comes off as some kind of petty response to a particular group or individual that burned them in the past.
The album is produced by former Cynic live vocalist/guitarist Tymon Kruidenier. The production is generally clean, and the guitar tone is nice, but overall it feels underdone, as the vocals are totally dry and unblended, causing them to sound all the more nasal and distracting.
It's sad, really. Ingmar Otter is a great guitar player and the songwriting on the album is fantastic. If the vocal tracks were stripped from the album, and another vocalist wrote a new set of lyrics for the album, it could be a truly great 80's flavored prog metal album along the lines of Control Denied. As it is, the only real salvagable track is the obligatory fusion tinged instrumental "the Arithmetic Mean" with its lovely bluesy meltdown at the end, and I won't likely listen to the album again. It's worth noting that the vocals and lyrical subjects tend to put me off of most progressive and power metal, so if you're used to this genre and have got a tolerance for cheesy, preachy or offkey wailing vocals, I'd still recommend this album. Personally, I can only hope that the band hires a new singer, or that Ingmar Otter joins a different group.