Grunge’s Estranged, Desolate Cousins
Codeine, With Stephen Immerwahr, at Bell House
New York Tines July 1, 2012
By Jon Pareles
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/02/arts/music/codeine-with-stephen-immerwahr-at-bell-house.html?_r=0
"That last song was the last song that we wrote and, um, yeah, it sounds like some of the other ones too," Stephen Immerwahr said after he sang Codeine’s "Median" at the Bell House on Friday night. It was, like the rest of Codeine’s set, adamantly slow, asymmetrical, morose and drastically dynamic; among its terse lyrics were "grim and pure, like me." That was an apt self-description for Codeine, a New York City band that broke up in 1994 after releasing two albums and an EP.
Codeine has winked back into existence, with its founding lineup and its music unchanged, for festival and club dates, spurred by the reissue this year of its complete studio catalog along with live recordings and rarities by the collector-oriented Numero Group.
During the early-1990s surge of punk and grunge Codeine was decisively contrarian, turning aggression in on itself. The three-man band - Mr. Immerwahr on bass and vocals, John Engle on guitar and Chris Brokaw on drums - chose dirgelike tempos, ambiguous chords and unassertive vocals carrying thoughts of despair and suppressed anger.
Codeine had some antecedents, from Pink Floyd and Neil Young - Mr. Immerwahr shares his high-tenor register - to the arty post-punk of bands like MX-80 (whose song "Promise of Love" was part of Codeine’s set), but it forged its own sound. Its songs start out quiet and sparse, only to gather volume and gravity, crashing and tolling, yet somehow staying austere, even diffident. They crest and then fall away, often with a lingering instrumental coda, ending up no more fulfilled than they were as they began. The music was grunge’s withdrawn, desolate cousin. The era’s preferred suffix was "-core," so Codeine was tagged "slowcore" and "sadcore," mini-genres that would be continued by bands like Low and Red House Painters after Codeine disbanded. By the time Codeine made its second album, "The White Birch," released in 1994, Mr. Brokaw had already moved on to his next band, Come.
Nearly two decades later Codeine still sounds obstinately estranged. Onstage the band members were studious, concentrating on music that would expose any mistakes. Codeine played its old songs virtually note for note, with their tempos still inexorable, their spaces still gaping and their moodiness precisely measured, from the barest guitar strum to a hard-won full-band eruption.
It took a guest musician to reveal Codeine’s particular reserve. Stephen Brodsky, a guitarist whose band Cave In was named after a Codeine song, joined the band to perform "Cave-in," doubling Mr. Engle’s part. Mr. Engle wasn’t moving much more than his hands; Mr. Brodsky was bobbing back and forth, shaking his head, bending double to lean into the power chords that loomed midsong. He was acting out what Codeine had been purposefully holding in.
Codeine returns to New York on July 15 at Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker Street, near Thompson Street, Greenwich Village; (212) 505-3474, lepoissonrouge.com.