Ever since they released their ‘Hell Yeah’
EP back in January 2010 Codejak have been working
their arses off touring across the country and
over the years have shared the stage with the
likes of The Buzzcocks, Sham 69 and more recently
Fozzy as well as playing various different tattoo
conventions and Extreme Combat events, when Codjak
are not busy touring they are busy writing and
recording new music and are now gearing up to
release their debut album ‘Times Of Conflict’
which is due for release on the 19th November.
The album opens with ‘The Ballad Of Jenny
G’ a song which flows at such a great pace
where the drums are constant and banging, the
guitar riffs are fast and chunky and Dan Turner’s
vocals come at you in a twisted spoken word style
way with a big gruff sounding outcome, as the
song progresses it twists and turns throughout
the full 5minute duration where one minute you
are listening to the drums and guitars battling
it out before everything comes to an almost sudden
stop before building up again, vocalist Dan Turner
has you in the palm of his hands from start to
finish as his vocals chop and change throughout
in an almost psychotic way as his vocals change
from soft to full on screams with no warning what
so ever.
Next up is ‘Hell Yeah’ the song which
first got me into Codejak back in 2010 when they
released the ‘Hell Yeah’ EP, the song
has been reworked slightly for ‘Times Of
Conflict’ where some of the arrangements
are slightly different and in general the song
sounds bigger and better than before, overall
it’s a big dirty rock n roll number where
once again Dan Turner has you in the palm of his
hands as you patiently wait out his next vocal
movements, the guitar solo at the 1minute 50seconds
mark is extremely breathtaking and truly shows
off the musicianship of these guys.
The instrumental work in ‘When I Fall’
is spot on as Codejak proper go for it for a solid
46seconds before taking a 1 second break as Dan
Turner’s vocals come in taking you on yet
another catchy rock n roll journey.
For ‘Sail Away’ Codejak tone things
down a lot but at the same time still manage to
blast their way through the next 3-4 minutes in
a powerful way which features squealing guitars,
solid drums beats and Dan’s unique sounding
vocals which still maintain a strong aggressive
charge despite the song being mellow for their
standards.
‘Pull Out Your Knife’ is another
song that has been reworked from the ‘Hell
Yeah’ EP, the song opens with Dave Fisher
working his bass in such a solid way before the
song flows into a catchy and repetitive affair
which see’s Dan Turner shout out “Pull
out your knife, pull out your knife, pull out
your knife and come with me” over and over
again in such an aggressive yet pleasing way.
‘Broken Man’ see’s Codejak
go down the melodic rock route sounding slightly
like the Foo Fighters with a twist, the song is
extremely easy to get into and unlike anything
else on the album but then again this is Codejak
a band who write a bunch of songs which all sound
different from each yet equally rock.
‘Serpentine’ is right up there with
the likes of ‘Hell Yeah’ and ‘The
Ballad Of Jenny G’ as one of the best songs
that Codejak have ever created, it is a massive
tub-thumper of a track which is bound to go down
amazingly well on the live circuit with hundreds
and thousands of people shouting out “Yeah,
yeah, yeah, be my serpentine” along with
Dan Turner, instrumentally the song has some laid
back moments and quirky guitar work but in true
Codejak style for every bit of laid back music
they lay down they double up on the heaviness
moments later.
‘Start Again’ is a great catchy number
with Dan telling the story of how he would like
to go back to when he was young and start again,
‘Falling Back From Grace’ will have
you shouting the catchy title vocals with Dan,
whilst ‘Sell My Soul’ see’s
Dan out do himself vocally in a fast flowing way.
The album closes exactly the same way as their
EP closed with the laid back ‘Little Boy’,
the song is very eerie sounding and as the song
fades out you will have find yourself singing
“How do I get out of here alive” before
reaching for the play button to listen to the
masterpiece that is ‘Times Of Grace’
again.
‘Times Of Grace’ is a solid album
from start to finish, it features 11 tracks and
flows for just under 50 minutes, you can tell
that the band have put everything into it and
I expect 2013 to be a big year for Codejak after
word gets around on how great their debut album
is.
5/5
Review by Trigger
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