I Am King

Writing and recording

Code Orange entered the studio with Kurt Ballou in February 2014. Ballou is the guitarist of Converge and previously recorded Code Orange's 2012 debut album Love Is Love/Return to Dust. Code Orange drummer Jami Morgan described I Am King as a "different" album that will mark "a very new era for our band," and also elaborated: "A lot of the heavier parts are heavier and sometimes more obvious. A lot of the odd parts are weirder and a little more anti-social. Things are a lot more blended together." After the band wrote the "skeletons" of the songs for I Am King, Code Orange revisited the tracks to look for moments where they could, "incorporate these little sonic nuggets that excited us or intrigued us." The songs were also influenced by metal acts such as the groove metal band Sepultura, metalcore band Prayer for Cleansing and grunge band Alice in Chains.

Promotion and marketing

Code Orange (then known as Code Orange Kids) began teasing the release of its sophomore album 7 months in advance in February 2014 by posting an image of a green panther with a black backdrop accompanied by the phrase "King 2014" on its social media sites. The following month, Code Orange launched a mysterious viral marketing campaign and website dubbed "Thinners of the Herd," which asked for fans' names and home addresses.

In June 2014, Code Orange released a music video for the title track, "I Am King," directed by Max Moore. Writing for Exclaim!, Gregory Adams said "I Am King" is "a little gory" and also said, "While the black and white video strings together savage shots of the group ripping through fast and punchy hardcore licks and a monster of a mosh section from inside a straw-strewn barn, there's even more menacing footage mixed into the clip's runtime." In July 2014, Code Orange released an online stream of the song "My World," followed by a music video for "Dreams in Inertia" in August 2014, again directed by Max Moore. Writing for Fangoria, Samuel Zimmerman described the "Dreams in Inertia" video, stating: "Admittedly mellower (for a spell), the video for 'Dreams in Inertia' is full of occult vibes and lo-fi creep." Adams also discussed the video, commenting: "While we see the band delivering the tune throughout the video, we also get a glimpse of a guy's bathtub purification and a dour crew's march through a forest filled with nooses. Code Orange meet up with the other faction late in the video to offer a few sips of Kool-Aid, which may not be a gesture of good faith." I Am King was made available for online streaming in its entirety a week ahead of its release on August 26.

For supporting tours, Code Orange performed sets of almost entirely new material from I Am King. In an interview about an upcoming show in Portland, Oregon, drummer Jami Morgan explained, "We're gonna play one song off [Love Is Love/Return to Dust] and that's it. Nothing else matters. To me, when you make a record that [makes you] feel like how we feel about this record, the other records don't matter. They're obsolete. They were on a path to get to this record." Code Orange's first tour in support of I Am King was a brief stint opening for Killswitch Engage and Ringworm surrounding its participation in the This Is Hardcore festival on July 24, 2014. This was followed by a September–October 2014 co-headlining tour with Twitching Tongues.

Critical reception

Upon its release, I Am King received rave reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from music critics, the album received an average score of 87, which indicates "universal acclaim," based on four reviews.

Writing for Consequence of Sound Ryan Bray stated: "Guttural metalcore still reigns loudly over any dreamy, indie rock ambitions that Code Orange entertain on I Am King. ... But they're trying, and in a genre that adheres so closely to formula like hardcore, metal, and the spaces in between, that in and of itself means something." Andy Biddulph of Rock Sound described the album as "breathtaking" and wrote: "With its heady mix of head-caving drone, battering hardcore and classic rock riffery, I Am King is a record unlike any other."

Critics drew several comparisons between parts or all of I Am King and other metal and hardcore bands, including Converge, Disembodied, The Locust, Melvins, Norma Jean, Refused, Vision of Disorder, and Zao, and noted that the band's heavier music styles on the album included metalcore, death metal and sludge metal. Some critics noted some non-hardcore influences on select tracks, including shoegaze, post-punk and indie rock, and noted similarities to The Smiths and Lush.

Commercial performance

The album debuted on the Billboard 200 at 96, making I Am King the first Code Orange album to appear on a national chart. I Am King also peaked at number 10 on the Top Hard Rock Albums chart and number 29 on the Top Rock Albums chart.

Personnel

I Am King personnel adapted from CD liner notes.