Album Review: Codespeaker – Scavenger (Ripcord Records)

‘Scavenger’ is the new album from Edinburgh-based post-metal band Codespeaker, and it will be released on November 8th via Ripcord Records.

With a titanic sound and a level of intensity not often associated with post metal, Codespeaker’s new album stands out for all the right reasons. Reasons that are on clear display from the start with the brilliant, but disconcerting, experience that is the opening track, Usud. Melodic dissonance meets the sound of crashing and smashing heaviness, and it’s the first of many tracks that leave you feeling mentally spent.

That’s because this a seriously layered album and while it might sit in the post metal world, Codespeaker are more than capable of genre-bending in interesting ways. You’re going to have to really focus and think about this one. Especially when a track like Signum brings even more beastly heaviness to the forefront. This is Codespeaker sounding doomy and deathly, while continuing to create atmosphere thick enough to choke on.

Then there is Rescission and Hecatomb, completing the first half of the album. The former isn’t any less savage sounding, but somehow Codespeaker take the strong smell of post that permeates this album and make it even more pungent here. It’s easy to get buried under the weight of such heaviness, but their gloomy atmosphere adds surprising buoyancy. Whereas the latter is so tense and uncomfortably dark, it will give you mild heart palpitations. At least until the strain breaks and Codespeaker unleash emphatic echoing melody that sounds simply phenomenal.

Drink it all in and take a damn deep breath, there’s still so much more to come and Codespeaker are still finding fresh ways to make the listener sit up and pay attention. How could anyone be distracted when the sound of bedlam oozes out of Samsa’s hotter tempo? The energy uptick is welcome, but be under no false illusions, this one is still suitably soul sucking.

Yet so much of what has been heard so far, especially from an atmospheric perspective, feels tame when Enso is experienced. Of course none of it has been tame, it’s just the effect that this mood altering slab of dynamic post metal has on the mind. The best track on the album? That’s subjective, of course, but as far as a showcase of everything great about this band goes, it’s up there.

As is Karst and Verte. The former with its drawn-out relaxed melody that has a hint of danger to it. Danger that is realised when around the halfway point, the tone shifts and darkness comes flooding in. The latter with its impending crushing heaviness that arrives in cavernous style after some surprisingly relaxed and dreamy melodies. Hell, maybe it’s just a fantastic album overall, eh? The cherry on top being Hiraeth and the wild showcase of creativity it offers. Very few will be prepared for the challenge it offers as a finale.

Codespeaker have truly crafted an unforgettable experience here.

Codespeaker – Scavenger Track Listing:

1. Usud
2. Signum
3. Rescission
4. Hecatomb
5. Samsa
6. Enso
7. Karst
8. Verte
9. Hiraeth

Links

Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Ripcord Records