Codeine
Frigid Stars

LA RECENSIONE

1990, Chicago. In a period when grunge and fast rhythms seem to dominate, here comes something unexpected: Frigid Stars, the startling debut by Codeine, released by the Sub Pop label, a magnificent praise of slowness which lays the foundation for the birth of a new genre, slo-core, which will turn out to be one of the most influential for the emerging rock scene of the last decade of the second millennium. Frigid Stars is a perfect and innovative album, where in each of its ten songs you can feel a sense of melancholy and despair almost taken to excess , which is perfectly imprinted in the sorrowful voice of Stephen Immerwhar, accompanied by drummer Chris Brokaw and the guitar dissonances of John Engle.

It starts with the magnificent "D", and you already realize you're facing something profoundly different, an impression confirmed by the funeral tones of "Gravel Bed" and "Old Things", the impetuosity of "Pickup Song", the harsh noise of "Second Chance" and "Cigarette Machine", and the concluding and intense "Pea", the final jewel of an extraordinary and flawless album, ready to enter the history of rock music and beyond. With their first work, Codeine offers a revolution in the way of making music , and perhaps bands like the later Low would never have existed without them.

Following Frigid Stars, in '93, came an EP, Barely Legal, and a second album released in 1994 again by Sub Pop, the excellent White Birch. Then nothing, without even an announcement of an official breakup. The short and intense story of Codeine ends here: without much noise, these three Chicago gentlemen were set to mark the music of the following ten years and, even though today they are unknown to many, albums like Frigid Stars still reveal all their splendor, like indelible footprints impossible to remove or forget.