I am not sure who this band is, but what did they do with Codeseven? You know the band I saw a couple years ago at the old Grog Shop who played a strange type of hardcore music when they opened for Hopesfall? They rocked really hard, but they jammed out the spacey electronics at the same time?

I got the new Codeseven CD recently from Equal Vision Records, and I will be honest when I say I wasn't so much looking forward to reviewing it. I used to like Codeseven and their albums were pretty good, but anymore, hardcore isn't really my scene. So, once I pumped "Dancing Echoes / Dead Sounds" into my CD player to give it a listen I was pleasantly surprised by the turn that the band from Winston-Salem North Carolina has taken.

From growls and screams of displeasure, I found lush electronic melodies and beats that wouldn't sound out of place on the "Adore" album by Smashing Pumpkins when they lost their drummer Jimmy Chamberlin for a while. And there isn't a scream to be found on this album. Instead of heavy distortion-filled guitars, I found a nicely balanced and blended mix of guitar delays, reasonable chord progressions and complimentary electronics. The final result is a very good album.

The first proper track on the album is "All the Best Dreams" which sounds like something from the band Lusk, the first (and only?) project from the original bass player of Tool, Paul D'Amour. The vocals are clear and jump back and forth from a whisper to a beautiful tenor during the chorus. The keyboards keep things interesting without ever taking away from the music. We learned quite quickly in the 80's that the keyboard could be used pretty horribly and it takes a good ear for a band to keep it in check. Codeseven have done this successfully.

Other album highlights are the poppy "Roped and Tied," "Alt. Wave," "The Devil's Interval" with it's driving repetitive beat and the triumphant album closer, "Sunflower."

As I said in the opening, this is a pleasant surprise from a band that isn't anything like what they used to be. I know a lot of fans of their other work might not like this new direction, but for this fan, it really matched up with the progression that I am taking in my own listening.

(Incidentally, I heard Hopesfall have also gone in a new direction and word has it that their new album sounds like Hum. Who knew that all the hardcore kids would reinvent themselves?)

If you enjoy the Smashing Pumpkins, the new Lovedrug, any of the Muse albums, or Lusk, you will enjoy this music.

(This first appeared at www.filteringcraig.com - ROCK!)