Pittsburgh’s Code Orange started out as a chaotic metallic hardcore band with the word “Kids” in their name. Over the years, they’ve have evolved into something else. They’ve racked up Grammy nominations and recorded theme songs for pro wrestlers. They’ve incorporated industrial, IDM, and straight-up metal into their sound. Today, the band announces plans to follow their 2020 album Underneath with a new one called The Above, and they’ve got goddamn Billy Corgan singing on their lead single.

A couple of years ago, we learned that Code Orange were working on new music with Corgan, and we finally get to hear it now. Corgan sings guest vocals on “Take Shape.” The band recorded The Above at Electrical Audio in Corgan’s Chicago hometown. Band members Jami Morgan and Eric “Shade” Balderose co-produced the LP, with engineering from Steve Albini. The album also features “Grooming My Replacement” and “The Game,” the singles that came out a couple of months ago. Here’s what Morgan says about the album:

We wanted the album to be able to wash over you with melody, aggression, and joy, but it was of equal importance that the closer you look, the more you are rewarded. It was to feel rooted in the “analogue” world, but with threads of digital reality binding things together. We wanted the sound and even the recording process itself to reflect that edict, so we enlisted Steve Albini at Electrical Audio to get the most real and raw version of the band possible, even recording us all at once in a room together for the first time in our career.

“Take Shape” goes for a full-on anthemic nü-metal sound, and it’s got Corgan’s voice on the surprisingly tender bridge. The newly blonde Jami Morgan co-directed the ambitious “Take Shape” video with Max Moore. Below, check out the clip and the tracklist for The Above.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Never Far Apart”
02 “Theatre Of Cruelty”
03 “Take Shape” (feat. Billy Corgan)
04 “The Mask Of Sanity Slips”
05 “Mirror”
06 “A Drone Opting Out Of The Hive”
07 “I Fly”
08 “Splinter The Soul”
09 “The Game”
10 “Grooming My Replacement”
11 “Snapshot”
12 “Circle Through”
13 “But A Dream…”
14 “The Above”

The Above is out 9/29 on Blue Grape. The next day, Code Orange will play their own Code’s World festival at the Pittsburgh venue Preserving, headlining a bill that also features bands like Madball, Vein, E-Town Concrete, 200 Stab Wounds, Pain Of Truth, and Gridiron.