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Codeseven:
Dancing Echoes/Dead Sounds
In Melinda and Melinda, Woody Allens latest attempt to resuscitate his career and his reputation, a story about a woman is told in two different styles one tragic and the other comic. The film begins with two playwrights arguing about whether life is fundamentally tragic or comic. Eventually they both try to tell essentially the same story in each of their different styles, trying to prove that either the tragic or the comic elements are primary. The movie itself is very bad, and the premise is developed poorly, but the idea is worth pondering in relation to rock music. Now obviously, in rock, the issue is not going to be between comedy and tragedy, but rather between what might be called the metal disposition and the emo disposition. The metal disposition focuses on power. The pure force of the music is the point, and anything that gets in the way of that should be shelved. The underpinning of this disposition is that music is meant to move a person in a very specific sense: it is supposed to rock you on your ass. Of course, this disposition doesnt literally need to be achieved through metal. A lot of punk, garage, etc. can fall into this category. Even most rap, insofar as it is formed with the express purpose of facilitating booty shaking, essentially fits into the metal disposition, broadly conceived. The emo disposition conceives of music as primarily meant to affect someone on a more emotional I guess one could say cerebral level. The main theory behind this type of music is that it is supposed to touch your soul or something like that. Again, the emo disposition doesnt have to be played out in emo music. Music as diverse as Dylan, Radiohead, etc. probably fit the bill here. The dilemma in rock is that ideally, you want to harness both dispositions to your ends as a musician. Most, however, end up more on one side than the other. The Raleigh NC band Codeseven is a good test case in this regard. Originally a hardcore metal act, their new album, Dancing Echoes/Dead Sounds is definitely not metal in any reasonable sense of the word. Some have called Codeseven nu-metal or post-metal or whatever; but none of those labels, as vague as they are, really capture the sound of this band. Alternately heavy and spacey, Codeseven is really working in a genreless plain. There are, of course, elements of genre-rock present here, but they are mostly permutated and mixed so that any semblance of their origin is missing. This effect causes an interesting listening experience, in which the critic even stops trying to categorize and really starts to listen to what is going on in the music itself. Let me be clear: I hate nu-metal and anything even remotely close to it. This, however, is not nu-metal. Elements of The Cure, Radiohead, as well as heavy rock are present in the music, but the true standout here is the vocals. Hanging above the music like Thom Yorke in his glory days, the vocals shine. The battle between styles is ended, at least momentarily, on this record. Never brothers, but sometimes allies, these two dispositions will continue to vie for control. On Dancing Echoes/Dead Sounds, though, they have found common ground.
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