12 January 2024

CODEX SERAFINI – The Imprecation Of Anima (2023, LP Riot Season)

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Riot Season

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Space Black Vinyl (Comes with a thick card double-sided lyric insert and Black poly-lined inner bag with download code), 300 copies

Release Date: 23 Jun 2023

Codex Serafini is a relatively new band. A 5-piece group – that I nicknamed “The 5 Red Psych Tunics” – hailing from Sussex (UK), making their mark with their debut cassette “Serpents Of Enceladus” in 2020. Codex Serafini is one of those precious “finds” through the magical vast Internet, at least for me… Having heard all of their works so far, including their MAGNIFICENT Live album, I’m convinced that Codex Serafini is one of the most exciting and at the same time unusual Psych bands on the planet! Here’s what their Bandcamp states:

“Their journey started a long time ago, some say on Saturn, some say in the subconscious of the human psyche, coming out in different manners through the ages, channeled by mystics, witch doctors, shamans, free thinkers, free spirits. But we do know that what has become Codex Serafini travelled here from their home world on Enceladus in 2019 and crash-landed into the music scene of Sussex.

Invoking many styles of psychedelic rock from the recent human musical history to open the minds of their human audience to the other world, and higher plane.

After releasing two EPs, ‘Serpents of Enceladus’ in 2020 and ‘Invisible Landscape’ in 2021 Codex Serafini embarked on their most immersive journey so far creating what would become ‘The Imprecation Of Anima’ an exploration of the self, the duality of the human existence. The album is heavy, much heavier than their previous output and the albums longest song, ‘Animus in Decay’ is longer than either of the bands previous EP’s.

It snakes and weaves an epic motif through the wilderness of the sometimes barren lands of the unconsciousness, focusing the mind with it’s almost heavy metal mantra and using this to open up the third eye to the realization of our mortal existence. The whole album is a pilgrimage into ones inner self and it’s relationship with it’s own shadow in it’s truest form, two parts coming together as a whole”…

“The Imprecation Of Anima” consists of just 5 tracks, 2 on the first side and the rest 3 on the second side of the LP album. The opener “Manzareck’s Secret” (9:40), starts in a mystical way, with a shaman-like atmosphere, soon the scenery becomes strangely Heavy, funeral-like, cold, with an unbelievable fantastic Sax sounding and an orgy of sounds at the back, and above all these exciting and interesting “Psych” things, is the singer’s voice and her vocals – which she is using it as an extra instrument in this magical and psychedelically chaotic atmosphere – blending Dark, Goth, while the Sax leads the song into a frenzy rhythm, the guitars are following in the most heavy-fuzzy way, creating an amazing amalgam of PSYCH sounds that are flooding the place, it’s all over inside your HEAD, exploring every single unexplored corner of your brain, and ending in the most Epical PSYCH way I heard since a long long time ago! “Mujer Espiritu” (15:33) is a very long track, so unfortunately is divided into 2 parts, Part I (9:40) closes the ‘A’ side while Part II (5:53) opens side ‘B’. There’s a lay-back atmosphere, dark of course, kind of abstract and cold, emerging a Gothic Jazz feel, of course everything in here is covered by a huge Psych cloak, the Sax is kind of mournful, and then there’s those female cold and dark vocals, projecting to mind images of an intoxicated Pythia, trying to speak the Oracle, the High Priestess of the Temple is trying to get on ecstasy… Eventually, the Sax leads the track down, slowly entering the Underworld, becoming heavily disturbed, becoming darker, colder, creepier, weirder, Psych-er… “I am Sorrow I am Lust” (3:02) is a Heavy track that I would dare to call it a Psych-Goth Punker! It can surely, in high voltage dose, burn every single cell inside your brain… The album comes to an end with “Animus In Decay” (17:15), starts in a rather Heavy way, it’s the Sax on the first corner, the fuzzy guitar on the opposite one, while singer’s voice is on the middle trying to take the best out of them, the drummer is there, watching in discreet, holding the beat steady while there’s a presence of a dark noise punky background, the track is becoming more Psych sec after sec, min after min, trying to escalate, the scenery is been transformed into a some kind of a Psychedelic Elegy, flirting with the abstract and the Avant Garde, Amorphous Psych music that leads to a frantic delirium… Wow! Unbelievably Mind-Bending…

“The Imprecation Of Anima” managed not only to enter the list with my 50 personal best albums of 2023, but it easily reached the 7th position! (check the list here) Probably, I’m under Codex Serafini’s spell… And it seems that I’m quite enjoying it! So, all you Psych-Heads out there, you are advised to enter Codex Serafini’s mysterious and enchanting twisted Psych world, the emotional result is priceless… TimeLord Michalis

PS1 By now, you probably have seen a few pictures from their live appearances. Surely, you’re asking yourself “what the hell is going on here?”… Try to check their live digital album “God’s Spit” (listen here), you will not believe your very own ears what “The 5 Red Psych Tunics” are doing there…

PS2 I do insist on this one… Something is going on with the water at Brighton… There’s no other explanation… Noteworthy Psych bands are popping up like mushrooms… Brighton, probably the hottest and Number 1 underground Psych scene on Planet Earth, this moment…