Most musical genres have roots that are easy to trace. Take hip-hop for example; the nasty white folk wouldn’t let black people in to their discos, so they went off went and did their own thing. Slowly, hip-hop grew and spread like a disease across the world and that's where we are today.  

Some musical genres, though, don’t really have original roots that can be traced back to a founder. Post rock is such a thing; it comes from all over the world, has a strong underground following a fuzzy beginnings. Even though it’s probably our ignorance, we've yet to find a strong British act that rivals some of the better foreign post rock artists. Guess what? We think we’ve found one in Codes In The Clouds.

Canada is lucky enough to be home to the not-broken-up but apparently permanently holidaying post rock act Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Their strong emotive mix of orchestral arrangements and vocal samples from street preachers and the public have won them a lot of fans. But their stance on mass consumerism has maybe led to them not being as successful as they could have been. Appearances in the NME and the use of the track The Dead Flag Blues in Danny Boyle's film 28 Days Later shows they are there to be heard, though. 

Similarly, Iceland has Sigur Ros. There is some debate whether they are truly a 'post rock' band as they don’t always fit into that category. But, regardless, their haunting vocals and breathtaking videos have won them an army of fans. Extensive tours around the world and high-profile support slots with Radiohead have only done them wonders. America’s Explosions In The Sky are the current buzz band in the whole post rock scene. Four albums, an EP and a film score later they are still going strong with fans loving all of their output. Soon they are back on the road to promote their last record.

God Is An Astronaut have made a few albums in the time they’ve been together but sadly haven’t had the impact that they deserve as yet. So it was refreshing to see some English post rock talent finally emerge as we were on the prowl through MySpace in the shape of Codes In The Clouds. Even the name of the band suggests that they might have a dreamlike quality about them. Sometimes names can often tell us a lot about an artist. If they were called 'Mega Fucking Death Stab' we wouldn’t have expected slow guitar builds and explosions of drums. In the band's own words:

We are a five-piece instrumental band from Kent in England. We like making pretty music that can explode at any second. We want our live shows to open your eyes to the post rock scene and show you why it's such a fast growing thing.

Yup, we couldn’t agree more with them. They sum up what they are about with no lengthy press releases and fancy gimmicks. Promotion is on the agenda for this lot as two out of the three tracks available to listen are from their debut 7” single which was recently released. Distant Street Lights is showcased in full whilst the other song on the record is only a short snippet that we can only presume is there to help you part with your cash. Distant Street Lights is a glorious mix that showcases all of the band's talents. No-one is left to fade into the background to let someone else steal all of the attention. A slow and gradual build-up from the initial breakdown brilliantly explodes after its everchanging slow pace mix of delicate guitars and soothing drums.  

Fractures demonstrates more of the same but just when you get a good feel for the song it fades away! But no matter, there is enough there to understand that this band are firmly in the right direction and should be one to be noted for the future.

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Codes In The Clouds MySpace