Unless I've been a fan for many years, it's extremely rare for me to write about a group that's already fairly successful and possesses some degree of "hype," but this song is just so fuckin' good, and single-handedly made me a Code Orange believer.
When Love is Love // Return to Dust hit the streets in 2012, I loved the cover art and was mildly curious, but the band name "Code Orange Kids" rubbed me the wrong way—I'm known to be a bit of a stubborn dumbass at times, what can I say?—and it didn't quite hit me overall. As simply "Code Orange" two years later for I am King, I was kinda like, "Alright, they're on the right track here, but I'm still not 100% sure I see the big deal..." For whatever reason, though, when it was announced a little over a year ago that they had signed to Roadrunner for Forever, I actually found myself rooting for them—maybe they'd be like a V.O.D. for today's generation or something? (That first V.O.D. full-length on Roadrunner in '96 was a "big deal" album for me.)
And then I heard "Bleeding in the Blur." That was it. Game over. Sold. All three Code Orange full-lengths = ordered. It's dissonant, dirge-like, a little grungy, still heavy, and just super fuckin' crazy catchy—I absolutely love everything about it. (The video even reminds me of something I could've seen on Headbangers Ball in the early-'90s.) "Back in my day" this was the kind of track that a band might catch a little shit for, but kids are so much more open to a wide range of music these days that I suppose that's probably sort of a non-issue now?
Whatever the case, I said it in January, and I'll say it again: this is the best Code Orange song I've ever heard, and I'd flip if they did an entire album like this.
Of course, that wouldn't make much sense, 'cause they're not exactly a band that stays in one place, but... they've already been involved with at least one wildly different band, and I dig their attitude, so... who knows? If anyone's gonna break off a Blood From the Soul- or Meathook Seed-level side project these days, I'd bank on these folks...
