Published on Aug 4, 1999
There is an inherent danger when a band who carves out their own
musical niche succeeds and makes a big name for themselves in the
market. That is: other bands will soon follow suit and jump on your
bandwagon.
Codeseven is a band that is part Tool, part Nine Inch Nails –
only they don’t excel at either side of the musical spectrum. One
of the few bands I know of that utilizes two vocalists (one for
melodic singing, one for vocal chord-scraping screams), their
latest disc
Division Of Labor is not the easiest disc to get through,
nor is it one I’d recommend picking up on a lark.
The band – vocalists Jeff Jenkins (melodic) and David Owen
(screams), guitarists James Tuttle and Eric Weyer, bassist Jon
Tuttle and drummer Matt Tuttle – plow through the six songs that
make up this mini-album, but they don’t always worry about how the
big picture sounds – and that, in fact, turns out to be their major
flaw. It’s all well and good to be gung-ho about the music, but if
things don’t sound like they’re fitting together, it’s all for
naught.
These problems plague
Division Of Labor right from the beginning. Codeseven seems
to be more concerned about creating a ruckus than about a song
necessarily. Having the layered vocals of Owen and Jenkins doesn’t
help matters; if anything, it makes them more complicated. Singing
and screaming don’t fit well together in general; layering it on
top of the music on tracks like “Lights,” “It Could Happen” and
“How Many Miles To Babylon” reduces any hope of a song to sonic
sludge.
Interestingly enough, the only thing that kept me interested in
Division Of Labor was at the outro of the last song,
“Leaches Of Karma,” a song that dissolves into a piano piece played
by Stewart Dance. (To prove that I’m no longer classically
literate, I am unable to name the composer or the title of the
piece he played, but it’s beautiful.) While I enjoyed this
rendition, it was a bizarre ending to a disappointing disc.
While the two vocalists doing two styles is a calling card for
Codeseven, they might want to consider dropping to one style. I
mean, you’re either hardcore or you’re not; make up your minds.
Codeseven might be a band who are still learning to develop
their sound, but if
Division Of Labor is any sign, I’d guess that some band
members need to pick up the slack.