March 14, 2020. As Covid chaos sweeps the planet, Code Orange become the first band to play a livestreamed gig. Towards the end, Jami Morgan, obviously infuriated, confused and likely more than a little scared by this new and remarkable situation, looks into the camera and addresses his audience.
“This is what happens when the rat fucks that run this world don’t care about you, they don’t care about me, they don’t care about any of us,” he spits into his mic, as he swings the camera around to show the eerily empty Roxian Theatre venue in the band’s native Pittsburgh. “They’ll take and take until there’s nothing fucking left. So when you wake up, hopefully next to your loved ones, maybe alone, you have to look in the mirror and tell yourself… I am King!”
And with that, Code Orange launch into a scathing version of their song of the same name.
If there was one metal band that had the right to be apocalyptically angry about the events of 2020, it’s Code Orange. The day before that livestream, around a week before entire countries began to isolate, the Pittsburgh hardcore crew released their fourth album, Underneath. Critically lauded (it became the first album in half a decade to earn a perfect 10 in the pages of this magazine), beloved by their peers (the band had been handpicked as openers by everyone from Slipknot to System Of A Down), and praised by fans, its combination of crushing groove metal, modern
