You've likely heard about Van Halen's recent comeback, a surprisingly vital reboot of their classic David Lee Roth incarnation. Considerably further underground, another veteran hard-rock band, Raleigh, N.C.'s three-decade-old Corrosion of Conformity, is answering the same nostalgic muse. As with the Roth and Sammy Hagar Van Halens, it's helpful to think of C.O.C. as two different bands: On one hand, you've got the trio that recorded 1985's Animosity, a whirlwind of a record that drew equally on Bad Brains' frantic sprint and Sabbath's sinister swing, epitomizing what used to be called crossover. On the other, there's the quartet responsible for three far more commercial LPs-- filled with polished but still potent blues-rock, a grunge-era update on Mountain, and other early riff disciples-- from the mid-90s through 2000. Other memorable LPs (including 1991's Blind and 2005's In the Arms of God) featured their own unique lineups, but essentially, the C.O.C. tale amounts to Animosity vs. Deliverance, the 1994 Columbia album that spawned two minor alt-rock hits.
Corrosion of Conformity indulges in revisionist history. The lineup here is the same one that recorded Animosity-- bassist-vocalist Mike Dean, guitarist Woodroe Weatherman, and drummer-vocalist Reed Mullin-- and in the absence of 1994-2005 frontman Pepper Keenan (currently focusing on the Southern-metal supergroup Down but rumored to be returning to the C.O.C. fold), the three set the Delorean controls back to 1987, just after the still-punkish Technocracy EP and just before maturity set in. Dean, Weatherman, and Mullin reconvened in 2010 to revisit the 1980s material live-- see them if you can; they sound amazing-- and now they're adding to that repertoire, crafting as fortysomethings a record they never got around to in their 20s. As enjoyable as the Keenan-centric records were, they could seem labored, as if someone were angling for a breakthrough à la Soundgarden, or even White Zombie; on Corrosion of Conformity, those ambitions go right out the window.
It's not quite as simple as that. COC is a much more varied, shrewdly paced record than Animosity, yet it still seethes with a swampy rawness that the band hasn't embraced since the 1980s. Part of that is due to principal frontman Mike Dean, whose unhinged whine, at once ugly and profoundly soulful, rarely aspires to anything so civilized as singing, whereas Keenan had developed into a full-on crooner by the time he left the band. A crisp, no-nonsense production job (realized with the help of Dave Grohl, a longtime C.O.C. fan who lent out his L.A. studio for the project) and a purist avoidance of Pro Tools-y perfectionism also help; the performances often sound like they're coming unglued, and that adds greatly to the record's old-school charm. Corrosion of Conformity does overstay its welcome with a couple of second-rate tracks, but overall, the album manages to both recapture Animosity's feral energy and reach compositional peaks that the 1985 versions of Dean, Weatherman, and Mullin couldn't have accessed.
A few songs simply recap the Animosity template. In the opening seconds of lead track "Psychic Vampire", Weatherman crunches into a bulky doom riff and Dean lets out a cathartic groan, like he's casting off the weight of the previous two decades, during which C.O.C. traded caffeinated adolescence for grown-up discernment. Bass and drums enter, and the trio quickly accelerates to a hardcore gallop. The tempo change feels like a secret handshake with longtime fans: The creature lives, and he's wearing a flipped-up skate cap, Vans, and baggy jean shorts.
Crucially, though, there's much more to Corrosion of Conformity than strict reanimation. As good as Animosity is, only a few songs stand out from amid the blur; here, many of the tracks feel lived-in, nearly epic. If C.O.C. ever compile a greatest-hits comp (and they really should, given their diffuse discography), "River of Stone" belongs on it. Dean's possessed wail-- like the raving of a crazed seer-- leads the band through a chugging blues-metal verse and a grinding half-time chorus. The trio downshifts into an eerie, molasses-slow bridge, and the track takes on a somber grandeur that trumps both Animosity and the Keenan era for sheer emotive power. By the time the verse returns, you sense the song's proggish sweep; C.O.C. aren't just switching tempos, they're taking you on a journey. The driving anti-government rant "Your Tomorrow" is another standout. C.O.C. previewed the track on a 2010 Southern Lord 7", but the new version ups the intensity; Weatherman's riffs writhe grotesquely, as if they were playing him rather than the other way around, and Dean and Mullin add a shaggy, drunken-giant swing. The trio sounds as commanding here as it ever has, thriving on proud anti-virtuosity: punk spirit inhabiting a metal anatomy.
As a whole, Corrosion of Conformity is smartly sequenced for maximum variety. "Leeches", a bellowed hardcore outburst, sits next to the album's lone instrumental, "El Lamento de Las Cabras", drumless desert blues shaded with acoustic guitar; and the prog-punk mini suite "The Moneychangers" (part cowbell-abetted uptempo shimmy, part Floydian mood piece) segues into the proudly grungy doom-rocker "Come Not Here" (the record's clearest link to the Pepper Keenan years). It's a shame, then, that Corrosion of Conformity's two least-memorable tracks, the macho kiss-off "What We Become" and the 1983-style mosh-pit singalong "Rat City", follow one another late in the album. The songs add drag to an otherwise admirably streamlined LP. (Spring for the vinyl or deluxe CD versions, and you get two top-drawer bonus tracks, "Canyon Man" and "The Same Way".)
Uneven patch aside, Corrosion of Conformity is what you want out of a comeback record: not just a reclamation of lost vigor but a meaningful update on a vintage sound. If Animosity seemed like an ugly duckling back in the mid 1980s-- too punk for the metal crowd and vice versa*-- Corrosion of Conformity* registers similarly today. In an era when doom metal keeps growing bleaker and artier, and hardcore skews ever more dire, the album serves as a reminder that swagger, soul, and songcraft still have a place in the heavy-rock underground. Corrosion of conformity, indeed.
