Underer — The Code
It’s metallic, without being traditionally metal, and rather than the oft-heard primitivism of solo Black Metal projects, The Code zig-zags through a sharp labyrinth of riffs, screams, and quieter interludes. Structurally, the seven track album can be divided into three longer pieces, and four considerably shorter - the least being a mere forty-four seconds. Three of these short tracks are fast burn-ups, which hurtle through jagged patterns with guitars, drums, and vocals hanging on for dear life; the fourth is an instrumental interlude consisting of an accordion (or air organ) droning over a background of junk percussion and clatter. If we were harsh we might say that none of these shorter pieces amount to much individually; however, I think The Code works well as a coherent whole of an album. In this whole, the three longer tracks are undoubtedly the most engaging; without suggesting a formulaic approach from Underer, each of these charge headlong into fractured riffing and drumming, with discordant melodies and tortuous time signatures, but also feature sparser, quiet sections that serve as breathing spaces in the overwhelmingly claustrophobic atmosphere of The Code. Perhaps the best example of this is in Lady, the second track, where a heavily processed guitar introduction (that reminds the ear of Lighting Bolt or USA is the Monster) builds into a frenzied, tricky section of riffing that would be at home in Red-era King Crimson, before breaking down into a faux-choral passage that leads into tense, scattered piano; the track ends by returning to lurching, grinding pummel.
As I’ve probably said a million times before, I don’t like the ‘not my cup of tea’ punchline in reviews, but again, I fear I have to use it here. Shellenberger is undeniably an incredibly impressive musician on a technical level - possibly even to the detriment of The Code, as the complexity of the material often works against it being memorable - but the album doesn’t linger in my brain. This is as much a criticism as a recommendation, if you like severely math-y, tech-y metal. What does it sound like in simple reference terms? Well, you might imagine Harvey Milk compressing one of their albums by playing at lightning speed; oddly you might also imagine Abruptum’s Obscuritatem Advoco Amplectère Me covered by Atheist or Cynic, which I realise sounds strange but there’s a similar sense of ‘chaos in all directions’ except here it’s being delivered with jazz fusion precision; for a final, somewhat wayward comparison, picture a metallic hardcore band covering Trumans Water: the fractured riffing is there, the accordion interludes are there, but the tone is chest-beating aggression. The Harvey Milk comparison is also valid for the vocals, which remind me of Creston Spiers’s elongated bellows; but where Spiers often uses these to accentuate the space of Harvey Milk’s more minimal, expansive works, during The Code (mixed prominently) they quickly become rather monotonous, to the point where sometimes tracks feel like a vocal rhythm with convoluted riffs and arrangements layered underneath.
However, I am nit-picking to a degree; although I don’t feel that Underer ever achieve the critical mass or overload of a band like Asterisk or Agoraphobic Nosebleed, The Code is a solid barrage of cryptic riffing, supplemented by colourful and clever deployment of electronics, effects, and percussion