A lot of albums are released during the course of a year. Hell, even if you rule out all the albums that you know you have no interest in at all, there will still be some that you just don't get around to fully checking out until much after the fact. So while everyone else is focusing on the next big thing, I turned my attention on Codeseven's latest release, Dancing Echoes / Dead Sounds.
To begin, forget all you know about Codeseven's previous material. It's really irrelevant to talk about the band's chaotic metalcore past, or their evolution into a spacey-rock act. Those days, while extremely awesome, are nothing more than a faded memory. The majority of the music that Codeseven plays theses days could be termed experimental indie/pop. But to be more precise, I'd also add the adjective "boring," though there is an occasional nugget in the jumble of lackluster songs.
"All the Best Dreams," which happens to be the first single, picks up where the band left off on their previous effort, but with a little tweaking. The song is essentially an upbeat pop song with a dash of spacey guitar effects. Vocalist Jeff Jenkins' sweet melodies follow the flow of the song, resulting in what is the best song on the album. Regrettably for Codeseven, things kind of take a dive from there and never quite recover. The next three songs more or less dabble into more experimental indie/pop styles but produce nothing enjoyable.
Songs like "Roped and Tied" and "Sunflower" kind of brings things back to where they began on the album. It seems that this former metalcore act is much more adept at writing pop songs than anything else as of late. The instrumentals throughout are much more dynamic than on The Rescue. The band undertakes further experimentation with various electronic elements, pianos are also used quite a bit again throughout the course of the album.
This time around, Codeseven has also increased their use of interludes. Even though they are spaced throughout the album, they didn't help to cure my boredom that increased from the beginning of the album. Instead, I became even less interested and found myself beginning to daydream.
Dancing Echoes / Dead Sounds is a sub par effort from a band that used to produce quality music. How a band can go from writing exciting and vibrant music to something so uninspiring is absurd. But on the bright side, if I ever run out of Nyquil I now have a suitable replacement.
