They Say :- In the summer of 2010, the founding members of the pioneering underground metal band Corrosion of Conformity—bassist/vocalist Mike Dean, drummer/vocalist Reed Mullin and guitarist Woody Weatherman—gathered at Weatherman’s farm in the Virginia hill and began jamming together as a three piece for the first time since the mid-1980s.
This was the classic COC lineup behind 1985’s Animosity, the album that Decibel magazine recently called “a crucial stylistic lynchpin in the bridge between metal and punk” that “irrevocably reshaped crossover’s sonic possibilities.” The trio re‐learned songs from that album and 1987’s Technocracy, but this was not just an exercise in nostalgia. They soon began writing new material.
We Say :- Well, well and, indeed, well. This is what we want. The return of Corrosion of Conformity- with a self-titled, no-nonsense, we-have-now-stopped-messing-about-at-the-back sort of record is the sort of news that warms the bleakest of bleak midwinters. COC announces its arrival with gusto and then sits, stubbornly, in your cerebellum refusing to do anything other than cheer you up. This, then, is a moment to be noted. So let’s note it.
This is a Back to the Future record for COC. Let’s start with what you probably already know: this is COC without Pepper Keenan. Before you all start going- uh-oh, don’t like that, in a stroppy teenager way, let’s remember that COC were not always the southern rock influenced Kool Kats. Back in the day (and I properly mean back in the day- like the day when Motley Crue were releasing Theatre of Pain- and not just last week), COC were the hardcore crossover band it was OK to like. It seems that COC have gone back to what made them brilliant in the first place and delivered us another slab of that brilliance. What’s not to like?
Well, not much, actually. Psychic Vampire has a lovely dirty sludgy riff to kick things off in suitable style but it’s no stoner rock by numbers: it has a pared back approach akin to punk and a hardcore influenced directness that you hear again and again across the record. On Rivers of Stone, there’s a driven riff straight out of the top drawer that they have glued with their southern, horror influenced schtick that only COC can pull off. And pull it off magnificently they do, too.
Leeches is the first of the more punk/hardcore tracks: two infectious minutes of singleminded, simple but not simplistic bombast- it’s a hoot from start to dissonant finish. There’s more than an echo of Lynyrd Skynyrd to the intro of El Lamento de Las Cabras, an alternative soundtrack to a spaghetti western if ever you needed one whilst Your Tomorrow is just so effortlessly good, the only things you’re left thinking is why it takes them so long to sort themselves out between records. There might be a bit of a retro vibe seeping through Rat City but it’s their original retro vibe which is alright by me and should be alright by you too. The MoneyChangers with it’s dirty riffing and dirty subject matter and the equally soiled Newness are the centrepiece of what is a sterling return to form.
COC takes no prisoners, cuts no corner and, you know what? It is really good. Not webzine writer falling over himself to ingratiate himself with record label but properly, properly good. It has a great artwork (which I’m sure will be converted into suitably splendid tattoos by hardcore adherents everywhere) and there’s not one second of this record that sounds flabby or indulgent. As a statement of intent it shouts, unequivocally :”We’re Back!” They are. And how.
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