Dusting Off a Cassette Pt. 27: Corrosion of Conformity: Blind

I thoroughly enjoy Corrosion of Conformity. I'm not totally sure when I first heard them or what the circumstances were, but I can probably make a fairly accurate guess. Back in middle school (the formative years of my metalhead status) there was a decent radio station called The Blaze. Technically, it still exists, but not in the same format. Back then, you could hear metal played at any time. Now, it focuses on modern rock, with a very occasional metal song. C.O.C. had released their masterpiece Deliverance and The Blaze played a couple of songs from it frequently.

This was the album that came out prior to Deliverance and is a completely different album. C.O.C. is a band that has gone through several stylistic changes. The band was originally a hardcore band, then slowly began incorporating thrash metal influences. Soon, much of the hardcore was gone. After that, the band drifted towards Southern metal/sludge metal. This has been the most consistent and well-known style for the band and mostly began taking place when Pepper Keenan joined the band and took up the major songwriting role.

This album marked the beginning of the Pepper Keenan era, but he was not yet the principal songwriter. Keenan also had not yet taken over vocal duties. Karl Agell, formerly of School of Violence, was the vocalist on this, his only full length recorded with C.O.C. Keenan does sing on one track, the explosive "Vote With a Bullet." Agell's voice is better suited to thrash metal, he has a clean vocal style but one that sounds like he is perpetually sneering.

Musically, this is the band's thrash metal album, the only album by the band that has ditched its hardcore roots. The songs are typically fast, melodic, and heavy. Of course there's some filler at the end of the album, but everything else is straightforward true heavy metal at its best.