Corrosion of Conformity
America's Volume Dealer

THE REVIEW

Pepper Keenan, Woodroe Weatherman, Mike Dean, and Reed Mullin.

With a strong dose of personal reverence, today I open my new review by citing the names of what I consider the absolute best lineup the Corrosion of Conformity have fielded in their long career.

An experienced and reliable quartet capable in previous years of delivering two undisputed masterpieces of harsh and furious Hard-Rock-Blues-Stoner; I'm referring to Wiseblood from 1996 and Deliverance released two years earlier. With this America's Volume Dealer they open the new millennium and we're very close to another successful album, just powerful enough but with some novelties that initially quite puzzled me.

Pepper is fresh from the Sludge-Southern Rock experience he built with Down and wants to take Corrosion back to the roots of delta Blues, around New Orleans. The references head towards Southern bands like the Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd; with due caution because when they remember they were once a Hardcore band, they can still push and cause damage. Here's the explanation for my initial "disorientation" with an album less immediate than its predecessors; it requires a few more listens to be fully appreciated. Which I eventually did within a few weeks of its release, fall 2000.

They lock themselves in a recording studio and come out after only 28 days with 13 songs; the cover wants to be a tangible sign of change, the risk the band is willing to take. Those spirals, those almost visually disturbing circles seem to say "don’t worry about the album's winding and varied path. Because deep down we are still the COC."

The powerful and explosive "Over Me" and "Congratulations Song" (100% Corrosion of Conformity tracks) are chosen to open the new collection. Compactness, physicality, controlled rage: all ingredients that recall their very recent past. An unexpected slide guitar opens the marvelous "Stare Too Long" which represents the most changeable and at the same time successful novelty. Pepper has never been so serene and sunny in his singing; and the other members can only adapt, following him step by step on an excursion into Folk-Country. Unusual for them but very successful. The same can be said for "13 Angels" with its over six minutes of nocturnal Hard-Blues that rises in tone, elevates in its temporal progression to a finale where finally the two electric guitars become the undisputed protagonists.

The two and a half minutes of "Gittin' It On" give us the most vicious and devastating Corrosion; but my personal peak is reached with the Stoner-Rock gusts of "Take What You Want" which concludes with an immensely powerful solo that gradually lowers in volume, fades out. Deadly!!!!

Great Corrosion of Conformity...ZIPPO...

Ad Maiora.