Jami Morgan likes to talk big. Describing Code Orange’s third album to Kerrang! at the start of the year, he called it “our most psychotic shit”. Proudly, he also predicted that at the band’s forthcoming Coachella appearance, they would be “the best band in the world, just like every day”. Most presciently, he made a promise that claws its truth into you throughout Underneath’s intense three-quarters-of-an-hour: “You can’t point to it and say, ‘That’s not hard.’ It’s some of the hardest shit that there is. Not just from us. Period.”
This statement may as well be a contract signed in the vocalist’s own blood. Some of Underneath is nakedly aggressive, a running bodyslam into the frontiers of hardcore, metal, or whatever else you’d care to name these eruptions of aggro. Other moments are a grinding, stressful sonic migraine, in which meticulously manipulated digital embellishments scrape down the spine to cause genuine discomfort and, at times, a degree of intentional irritation. Conversely, some of it is intensely catchy, creepily sidling up to you and getting under your skin. But Jami is also absolutely correct about the effect of whatever sounds his band wrestle with at any given point: providing the next 10 months don’t gift the world a nuclear conflict, Underneath is without doubt the hardest thing you will hear for a very long time.