Corrosion of Conformity Album Reviews

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Eye for An Eye (1983)
Six Songs with Mike Singing EP (1985)
Animosity (1985)
Technocracy EP (1987)

Eye for An Eye (1983) + Six Songs with Mike Singing EP (1985)

4

Tell Me / Minds Are Controlled / Indifference / Broken Will / Rabid Dogs / L.S. / Rednekkk / Coexist / Excluded / Dark Thoughts / Poison Planet / What? / Negative Outlook / Positive Outlook / No Drunk / College Town / Not Safe / Eye for an Eye / Nothing's Gonna Change / The Green Manalishi (not mentioned on cover) // Eye for an Eye / Center of the World / Citizen / Not For Me / What(?) / Negative Outlook

When people nowadays praise the accomplishments of Corrosion of Conformity - usually referred to as just C.O.C. - they'll often have little praise for 90s albums Blind, Wiseblood and Deliverance, and this in favour of their 80's legacy, which is to quite a degree responsible for the punk/metal-crossover that was also preached by Suicidal Tendencies and D.R.I. at the time. These bands basically did the opposite of Slayer: whereas the Californian thrashers took heavy metal and sped it up considerably with a dose of hardcore, bands like C.O.C. started from hardcore's intensity and added metal elements, in the process paving the way for several generations of hardcore, thrash metal and metal-core bands. It's undeniably true that few bands came up earlier with this unholy merger, so you gotta give C.O.C. some credit for giving birth to a raucous bastard, but claiming that Eye for an Eye is still a good album would simply be too much praise. The quartet - consisting of Mike Dean (bass), Woody Weatherman (guitar), Reed Mullin (drums) and Eric Eycke (barking) - plays with a youthful conviction and rawness that's stressed by the rough 'n' ready production job, but unfortunately good intentions aren't enough. Weatherman sounds as if he'd only been listening to SST's Black Flag (very much influences by Ginn's punk-mess) and Saint Vitus (the occasional hint of doom metal) the few previous years, the rhythm section tries to keep up (and succeeds), but then you get Eycke, who makes Henry Rollins sound like Van Morrison, which is to say… the guy sticks with an incredibly monotonous delivery throughout the entire album, not knowing whether to pick incensed aggressiveness or indifferent nihilism. If you're a hardcore rookie, these 42 minutes will sound like a monotonous mess anyway, although it's obvious the band tries to differentiate once in a while. A few songs - opener "Tell Me" being the prime example - basically rip-off Black Flag's post-Damaged doom-punk by relying on almost unconnected sections instead of merely straightforward bashing. Other songs kick up the velocity by starting out as punk, but incorporating metal riffing ("Minds Are Controlled), or do the exact opposite: start off as metal and suddenly introduce accelerations to the hardcore bits ("Indifferent"). And then, there are still the in-your-face hardcore snippets, like "Poison Planet," "No Drunk" and "Broken Will," indignant punk nuggets with the obligatory raised middle finger and not too difficult tirades against those out there. By the 19th song, the trick has become quite old, so that the unexpected, half-decent cover of Fleetwood Mac's "The Green Manalishi" comes as… a relief. The CD-version of Eye for An Eye adds the 1985 EP Six Songs with Mike Singing, from when the band performed as a trio with bass player Mike Dean on vocals. Not that is was so hard, but he actually does a better job at it, screaming in a higher, slightly less monotonous tone that's almost reminiscent of the high-pitched shrieking of Bad Brains' HR. Quite a frustrating listen - unless hardcore punk and water are all you need to get by - Eye for an Eye is one of those albums that are still remembered because the band was on to something rather "new" for a while. But good it certainly ain't.

Animosity (1985)

7.5

Loss for Words / Mad World / Consumed / Holier / Positive Outlook / Prayer / Intervention / Kiss of Death / Hungry Child / Animosity

A fierce follow-up that improves immensely on the band's debut album, Animosity is where Corrosion of Conformity really succeeded to capture their hardcore-metal fury. The Six Songs with Mike Singing EP already explored slightly heavier territory than their debut, and this more metal-oriented direction is continued on their sophomore album, where they truly sound like Slayer's punk kid brothers. Produced by the band and Metal Blade's Brian Slagel, the album also has the thin, trebly production of the day. It may rob the band of its potentially crushing force, but it does give the music a lean, energetic vibe instead. In combination with the slightly more complicated song structures that go beyond the restrictions of traditional, rigid hardcore, this results in music with crossover appeal. Even though they're totally dissimilar, C.O.C. have in common with Motorhead that they could be appreciated by both camps. The luxury of being a noise fan in the 80s. Because the music's more demanding, the band has become slightly tighter, although it's obvious technical perfection wasn't one of their mains goals (some of Mullin's fills are a bit off/clumsy - that's what you get with these trebly affairs that accentuate all of the drummer's mistakes that much). Dean still can't sing for shit, but his hoarse screeching (part HR, part Kronos, part lunatic) serves the music and the message better than Eycke's voice did. Then there's also the band's political stance (it's all in the name, right?). While opening song "Loss for Words" has a lack of lyrical focus that lumps 'em in with the hordes of punk bands out there that confuse having nothing to say with making deep, universal statements (an easy substitute for existentialism that makes you look smarter than the metal kids out there singing about Satan and beer), political punk rarely sounds this effective. Even without the explicit political targets and agit-prop of, for instance, the Dead Kennedys, C.O.C.'s disgust with the (then) current state of politics becomes clear with repeated listens. "Mad World" attacks political leaders and the use of weapons of mass destruction (albeit in a much less successful way than Discharge, who were the undisputed champions of getting the message across effectively), while "Interventions" touches upon their nation's foreign politics (I presume they refer to the fiascos in Lain-America) and couples it to a truly blistering attack. Not all the songs here are as successful and sometimes the only thing you'll remember about a song is that Dean's trick of stretching out a line's last syllable (a bit like Bad Religion Greg Graffin sometimes did on their early songs) and the string of tempo shifts that don't take the song anywhere, but Animosity is definitely an improvement over the clumsier doom-punk of Eye for an Eye, which is only returned to during the instrumental loser, ironically perhaps the album's strongest cut. The ideal place to check out the band's semi-legendary crossover days, Animosity's best moments are pretty damn excellent.

Technocracy EP (1987)

6

(raised if you'd only regard the songs with Mike singing)

Technocracy / Hungry Child / Happily Ever After / Crawling / Ahh Blugh (Milking the Sick Farce) // Intervention / Technocracy / Crawling / Happily Ever After

On paper, nothing whatsoever could go wrong with Technocracy. Appearing two years after the brief Animosity, the EP was undoubtedly gonna contain the work of an even more experienced band, with the urge to finally release some music again. On top of that, the liner notes contain some fierce opinions that seethe with disgust, not only with the "growing sense of nationalism & obvious shift to the right" of their country and its leaders, but also the impact this had on their own scene ("(…) a stale fermentation of Archie Bunker views & "Mosh to kill, tough man in the slam pit" zero mentality"). Promising not to be turned off to heavy music, C.O.C. suddenly intends to become more outspoken, which is obvious from the album cover. The nuclear skull logo finally becomes more meaningful, as the band not only chooses vague political targets, but also focuses on the exploitation of natural resources & reign of technology (the title track) and offers depressing views on life/society, in which sane people have to struggle to get through the day unharmed. Even though you could argue the band became more "punk" again in their stance (luckily, they don't make you reach as often for the dictionary as a Bad Religion album), the musical direction once again shifted a bit more towards metal, with the band settling for a more conventional style not to far removed from the important speed metal bands of the day. The production is a bit more fleshed out, providing more "bottom" which makes them more accessible. However, the potential appeal of these four songs ("Ahh Blugh" is a half minute of filler) is almost entirely neutralized by the frustratingly powerless performance of new vocalist (yep, their third one - not including the pre-Eye for an Eye ones) Simon Bob, who recites his way through this album as if he's sharing his thoughts at a poetry meeting. What this kind of music needs - especially when their intentions are stated this explicitly - is a vocalist with the power and dedication to strengthen those points, and Simon Bob's "what am I doing here?"-tone won't do. As such, Technocracy is one hell of a missed opportunity, which to a certain degree can be compensated by the four bonus tracks with Mike Dean singing, three of which were those also sung by Bob (the other one a new version of "Intervention"). Did they realize Dean's incensed passion was better suited? Was it a lack of other new material? I have no idea whatsoever, but I do know something's wrong when the bonus tracks are the best cuts on your release.