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CORROSION OF CONFORMITY
IX

Candlelight (2014)
Rating: 7.5/10

There once was a time when North Carolina’s Corrosion Of Conformity was the coolest band on the planet. With Blind (1991), Deliverance (1994) and Wiseblood (1996) they casually wafted into the room, destroyed all those that sat in awe and moved on.

With various musical alterations and line-up changes C.O.C. has always remained “cult”. Arguably they should’ve been bigger, but with guitarist Pepper Keenan employed elsewhere with Down it’s up to the original formation to bring the goods.

Mike Dean (bass / vocals), Reed Mullin (drums / vocals) and Woody Weatherman (guitar) were responsible for those early cult items such as 1985’s Animosity, but for me 2012’s self-titled slab didn’t quite cut the mustard. Riff-wise it just lacked the energy and it was arguable that the vocals just lacked the depth and weight to give the band that formidable edge.

And so we come to C.O.C.’s ninth chapter; and as expected it’s another fluent expression but unfortunately once again it’s an episode that just lacks fire in the vocals. Of course, Dean was once a master of that crossover vocal sneer, but with the band still incorporating a slightly doomier ingredient his tone doesn’t sit comfortably, whereas Keenan and former vocalist Karl Agell had a lazier yet deeper drool.

The prime examples of this conflict come with the likes of ‘On Your Way’, which delivers the goods musically but not with the voice. ‘The Nectar’ reminds one of the C.O.C. of old, however; it has an old school Bad Brains sort of speed and zaniness about it. But this isn’t the C.O.C. I’ve grown to love, because in spite of their early cult offerings, for me the real heavyweight punches came via the aforementioned trio of Blind, Deliverance and Wiseblood. Now the band seem caught between two styles and yet lack the weight – or a second guitarist – to churn out consistently good groove-based melody.

Having said that, IX is a marked improvement on the self-titled opus, and there are some fine tracks to behold. ‘Trucker’ is a sun-blessed lump of tumbleweed nestling on hot sands; in lazy manner and blues-tinged elegance, it shifts pace with ease. Elsewhere, the other treats come via ‘Elphyn’ and ‘Tarquinius Superbus’, but for all of their elephantine grace, they remain cowering in the presence of those ID career classics. And that’s the problem; it’s so hard to judge C.O.C. away from those three albums. Keenan was such a presence and yet it’s something we must, if possible, move away from and with IX C.O.C. have provided an infectious batch of jams based around some truly natural, well-balanced riffs that are more than happy to fuse together a stoned sort of fluidity with darkened sprigs.

The band can be regarded as one that is solid if patchy, and while IX is still a world away from those three classics (which I must stop mentioning!) it’s a record that gives me hope in the original line-up. I was worried that the band was beginning to lose itself, even with the Keenan-driven In The Arms Of God (2005), but when you hear songs such as ‘The Hanged Man’ and the aforementioned ‘On Your Way’ I still sense that C.O.C. is back on its feet. And while the vocals will always bother me to some extent, this is still a half-decent album.

Neil Arnold