Twenty years ago this month, Corrosion of Conformity issued this 64-minute beast of a seventh album. It was an unexpected tour de force, released through Sanctuary Records, which had made its name picking up major label and bigger metal refugee acts either whose contracts had ended or whose companies had moved on. C.O.C. had done a run of three full-lengths and countless CD singles (it was the era of ‘let’s make $10 off three songs’; things other than weed used to be worth money sometimes instead of just costing a lot) through Columbia Records and before this 2005 wallop, their prior release was 2000’s America’s Volume Dealer, also on Sanctuary.

Now, among C.O.C. fans, America’s Volume Dealer kind of gets crapped on unfairly for the smoothness of its production and the accessibility of its sound. And to be fair, it’s a long, long, long way from the hardcore punk of 1985’s Animosity and/or the Southern-heavy epic that was 1994’s Deliverance — arguably their two pillars by which to measure — but I’ll go to bat for America’s Volume Dealer on the song level every time. “Double-Wide,” “Over Me,” “Congratulations Song,” “Take What You Want,” etc. These are killer tunes, and so when In the Arms of God was coming out, I was looking forward to it as a fan more than perhaps some others.

Two decades later, apparently I’m still patting myself on the back for it because In the Arms of God kicks unmitigated ass. But by the time they had toured for America’s Volume Dealer, drummer Reed Mullin (R.I.P. 2020) was no longer in the band — Jimmy Bower (Eyehategod) plays drums on 2001’s Live Volume — and they needed to find somebody. Not only this, but guitarist/vocalist Pepper Keenan had reignited the mid-’90s Southern heavy supergroup Down, with Bower and Kirk Windstein from Crowbar and others, which continues to this day, and so would be splitting his time between projects, one of which was very definitely at this point in history making more money than the other. So between a prior album that got early-internet panned and a distracted frontman, expectations weren’t high going into In the Arms of God.

But from “Stone Breaker” and “Paranoid Opioid” through the acoustic “Crown of Thorns” and the seven-minute jam-inclusive finale title-track, In the Arms of God is all-go and the band sound duly charged. Hooks abound through “It Is That Way” and “Dirty Hands Empty Pockets (Already Gone)” — one of the best breakouts in this band’s entire history in its later reaches — carrying its momentum into the Zeppelin-unplugged strum of “Rise River Rise” and the expansive-but-cohesive “Never Turns to More” dividing the first and second halves with an eight-minute runtime not at all shy about it’s we’re-off-a-major-label-now-so-here’s-a-jam ethic. Founding bassist/vocalist Mike Dean would take this further as Keenan went off with down to front an updated version of the oldschool trio incarnation of the band for two LPs and an EP between 2010 and 2014.

As with their Deliverance-lineup 2018 comeback, No Cross No Crown (review here) — still their most recent LP — the structure of the album is essential to the listening process. In the Arms of God essentially resets after “Never Turns to More,” with guitarist Woodroe Weatherman and Dean contributing vocals alongside Keenan in “Infinite War,” which remains unfortunately relevant. But while the first six songs are on-the-beat bangers, there’s an effort to space out in the Soundgardeny “So Much Left Behind” that works well before “The Backslider” regrounds between burl and sleek effects, and “World on Fire” declares itself in a nodding groove and one more hook before “Crown of Thorns” and “In the Arms of God” — the later of which should be taught as an example of how to do Southern metal without sounding like a cartoon character — round out.

It was the very tail end of the CD era, and the rock radio success that C.O.C. found in the ’90s had been capitalismed into oblivion. Keenan, Weatherman and Dean, in the absence of Mullin, turned to drummer Stanton Moore of the New Orleans jam band Galactic to fill the role, and with no disrespect to the memory of Mullin or what he contributed to C.O.C. up to and through No Cross No Crown, the drums on In the Arms of God are just of a different kind of character. On some level, it’s the difference between punk and heavy jazz, but Moore not only made the position his own, he owned it. However, he also had his own successful group he was part of, so couldn’t really be the full-time drummer C.O.C. wanted.

I don’t know if that’s changed or not, but Corrosion of Conformity have been in the studio — John Custer producing, as always; I didn’t mention it before now because it’s a given — throughout the last couple months, piecing together their next full-length. They’ve been doing so without Dean, who announced last Fall he was leaving the band — their new bassist is Bobby Landgraf, known for his work in Honky and for sharing guitar duties with Keenan in Down — for the first time since 1991’s Blind (discussed here), and with Stanton Moore once again stepping into the drummer position, 20 years later.

As to what the Keenan/Weatherman/Landgraf/Moore incarnation of Corrosion of Conformity might conjure in terms of craft, Keenan‘s songwriting is a long-since proven consideration, though as a fan, one worries about not having Dean‘s punk-rooted voice as part of the craft. But the underlying message they gave 20 years ago was that C.O.C. were going to find a way forward, and through Dean‘s version of the band to bringing back the four-piece for No Cross No Crown — the major complaint with which that I heard was that it was too long; eight years and zero records later, I don’t mind the “extra” — and the years of touring they’ve done since, I don’t doubt they’ll still find a way forward. “It is that way because it is,” and such. I have to think if C.O.C. could be undone as a concept, an entity, etc., the band would have been put to rest a long time ago. I think it’s too much in their blood for that.

And I’m glad.

In a spirit of looking forward to new things and new ideas while treasuring what the past has already brought us, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

—

What did I learn at this year’s Roadburn? That I’m unpleasant. I learned that people don’t really like talking to me, even some of my friends, and that when I walk away, it’s a relief. So I tried to walk away quickly and at least not obligate people to, I don’t know, look at me or have some kind of conversation. I also have basically nothing to say that isn’t “hi I’m terrified of life,” so I’ll 100 percent cop to my own role in making myself unbearable to be around. Anybody want to hear my middle-aged ass complain? No. Indeed not.

It’s a good thing I have a blog. Ha.

It felt good to come home this past Monday. I got a big hug from The Pecan, who very quickly remembered she doesn’t care for me all that much either and really only wants to talk to me when she needs something or her mom isn’t around. It do be like that, I’m told. My wife being legit wonderful, I try not to take the constant outright rejection personally, but as you may have guessed, fail outright just about every time. I go to bed most nights feeling like garbage. She’s been having a hard time at school — I will be genuinely surprised if I get through today without a call to come pick her up; it would be the second of this week and she didn’t go yesterday — and doesn’t have a lot of friends because she loses it and yells and wants to control everything and is autistic as fuck but hell no I’m not getting her diagnosed when some moron is out there talking about how people on the spectrum don’t pay taxes so maybe we just put them in these camps over here or whatever wacky horrifying bullshit came out of his bloated face last week while I was in the Netherlands. Fuck that.

But it’s a hard time, mostly for her, but definitely also for everyone around her. She’s got a couple dickhead boys in her class who’re gonna be giving her shit through high school. You can already see which kids it is. Normal-little-fucker whiteboys. I refuse to tell my kid not to defend herself. She’s going to need to.

Up and down week, I guess. Feel good but tired coming home from Roadburn and the energy-comedown is always a shift to make. But this isn’t my first time at the dance either and I set up this week purposefully so that it was the Buzzard video, the Dead Shrine premiere and today’s Conan review in a row basically as a favor to myself — those are all projects I enjoy and am interested in writing about, and in the case of the latter two, there’s a back catalog for context and I enjoy exploring that as well, if you couldn’t tell in the part about In the Arms of God above.

Zelda update: I just last night finished the Tower of Gods and let The Pecan pull the Master Sword from sunken Hyrule Castle in The Wind Waker. I never played it when it came out because I didn’t have a GameCube and thought it looked stupid, but it’s a pretty great game and my head was up my drunk ass in my 20s in just about everything except getting married and listening to stoner rock. I’m running an emulator on my computer with a couple quality of life mods and it’s been great.

Hope you have a great and safe weekend. Thanks for reading, for giving me space to vent without getting shit for it. I value that more than I can say. Next week is full. There’s news to catch up on (always) and premieres slated for Slow Draw (full album, Monday) and Burning Sister (video, Tuesday), as well as a review of the new Hippie Death Cult live LP and so on. It’ll be a good time, and thanks if you tune in for it.

Don’t forget to hydrate. It’s getting hot out there. And watch your head as you go. Listen to the new Turtle Skull.

PS – Thanks to everyone who bought merch in this round. It’s down now, but I appreciate the support and got about $450 in off of that that goes to paying bills and buying coffee. Helps keep me afloat and feel like I’ve contributed to the house this month, so yes, thank you.

FRM.

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Tags: Corrosion of Conformity, Corrosion of Conformity In the Arms of God, In the Arms of God, North Carolina, Sanctuary Records

This entry was posted on Friday, April 25th, 2025 at 1:49 pm and is filed under Bootleg Theater. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.