I admit that the artwork gave me the impression that I was about to hear another industrial (or something relevantly melodic) band. Codeon (don't ask me what it means) turned out to be an interesting case of Swedish Death Metal. Yeah, I know, Swedish Death Metal is an over-sucked lollipop for the last decade (the period bands like In Flames & Dark Tranquility required to reach a top sales number). Still on occasion few good or at least interesting bands spawn from the genre's core.
Finland's Codeon formed back in October 2002 by Sami Raatikainen (guitar) and Lauri Mailasalo (bass), but the band took its form in March 2003. Members came and left but in August of the same year they released their first Demo. The first gigs were performed in May 2004 and the band began planning on a new Demo release. That Demo finally became the EP I now hold in hand (released in 2005). Now the band is currently working on their first full length release...
Without being ground-breaking or something like that, Codeon stand pretty well. Their songs bring in mind the mid period of Dark Tranquility, quite lengthy (all of them above five minutes) with lots of fast guitar riffs and, oh well, brutal vocals. The guitar work is damn good, the band manages to deliver furious yet catchy riffs at the same time. The production is of Finnish standards of course (oh you know what I mean).
Yes, I know we've heard this all before by many bands but I have the feeling that Codeon are not simply a Xerox band trying to grab a piece of success. I am really looking forward to checking out their full length.