Album Review: Corrosion of Conformity, Good God / Baad Man
Posted in Reviews on April 15th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Some eight years after a studio return, Corrosion of Conformity… make a studio return. Good God / Baad Man is the 11th full-length in the 44-year narrative of the band, whose membership at this point draws from North Carolina, New Orleans, Texas and Chicago. Comprising 14 tracks over a sprawling 66-minute 2LP, Good God / Baad Man is both a reassurance and something of a reachout. It marks the studio debut of Bobby Landgraf on bass/backing vocals alongside founding guitarist Woodroe Weatherman, frontman Pepper Keenan on guitar/vocals and drummer Stanton Moore, who after appearing on 2005’s In the Arms of God (review here) returns to the band in place of Reed Mullin, who passed away in 2020.
The absence of founding bassist Mike Dean, who quit the band in 2024 and has a new project called Archaos, is notable. Keenan has spent the last 20-plus years going back and forth between C.O.C. and Down, in which Landgraf (also Honky, etc.) also plays, and has always brought midtempo groove to balance Dean‘s hardcore punk undertones. Even on a ripper like “Gimme Some Moore” here, which was the album’s first single and might be its most charged moment, is denser and more Motörheaded in its push.
That Good God / Baad Man has so much energy in its recording — the production details and little slices of life at the start or end of a track, short divergent intros and instrumental pieces like “Bedouin’s Hand” and “Mandra Sonos,” creating such varied, vivid pictures — stands alongside the compositional depth and an abiding sense that the band are having a party and everybody’s invited; it is the performances that most tie it together.
Another notable absensce is that of longtime producer John Custer. From 1991’s Blind (discussed here) through 2018’s No Cross No Crown (review here), Custer helmed every C.O.C. studio album, eight total, and played a pivotal role in shaping their sound and influence. Warren Riker (Down, Cynic, Cathedral, etc.) debuts as producer and is served in the effort by his prior collaborations with Keenan in recording Down (it was before Landgraf was in that band, I’m pretty sure), and certainly Down are a relevant consideration particularly as Good God / Baad Man works its way toward the finish of its second LP, with songs like the funk-boogie D-side strutter “Handcuff County” and the backup-singers-included finale “Forever Amplified” feeling especially New Orleans blues-rooted in aesthetic terms. But Good God / Baad Man isn’t a Down record. It’s very much a C.O.C. record, and if you want to be more accurate, it’s two of them. It’s Good God and Baad Man.
One might’ve said the same of No Cross No Crown — that it broke into two distinct LPs — and been correct, but Good God / Baad Man revisits this idea with clearer intention. They’re not exactly even, but the first LP ends with the nine-minute mid-paced melancholy sprawl of “Run for Your Life,” catchy in kind of a sad way, and the second starts with the hook and shove of “Baad Man,” which isn’t necessarily held back by some problematic accenting, but kind of skirts the line there, not that political correctness matters under fascism.
The first of the two albums, with the whole-album intro-into-push “Good God Final Dawn” and “You or Me” and “Gimme Some Moore” offering familiar brashness and groove, choice riffing and striking flashes of aggression, torn-open solos from Weatherman and an abiding air of shenanigans, is the shorter. The powerhouse opening salvo shifts into purer Sabbathry with “The Handler” before “Bedouin’s Hand” departs to vague Middle Easternism and “Run for Your Life” digs in to tell its story in its own time, thank you very much.
This LP, the Good God portion of Good God / Baad Man, does a condensed take on the classic heavy rock A/B-sided 12″ progression. It rocks up front, branches out from there and finishes big. It’s not pushing boundaries for the band the way Baad Man is about to, but it effectively hints toward that in “Bedouin’s Hand” and “The Handler” without giving away where pieces like the penultimate “Brickman,” or the jammy “Swallowing the Anchor” just before it are going to go. The second LP, with four songs each on sides C and D, again starting with “Baad Man” and answering with “Handcuff County,” works not dissimilarly but digs in further for both its straightforward cuts and its branchouts.
“Asleep on the Killing Floor” is a destructive highlight, while “Brickman” is an unplugged contemplation kin to “13 Angels” or “Shelter” from out of C.O.C.‘s catalog, and “Swallowing the Anchor” — with that phone ringing intro bound to catch you off guard the first time you hear it — feels like a touch-ground to prior rockers like “Lose Yourself” and “Baad Man” at first but emerges as jammier. Curiously, the word “tits” is bleeped out of the line, “She had the tits of a witch,” as if to acknowledge that that’s not something they actually want to be saying in a song while at the same time saying it anyway. These are dark, dumb times to be a human male.
In many ways, and not the least of them the blowout they reserve for “Forever Amplified” at the end, Good God / Baad Man is the Pepper Keenan-fronted album C.O.C. fans have wanted since In the Arms of God. Where No Cross No Crown was framed around the comeback of the ’90s era of the band and thus set up to live in the insurmountable shadow of albums like 1994’s Deliverance (discussed here) and 1996’s Wiseblood (discussed here), Good God / Baad Man offers a revitalized, refreshed sound, rooted in live performance.
It is dynamic, encompassing, and speaks to the band’s past without trying to recapture it. Keenan‘s strength as a songwriter is well established and all over this material, but his is by no means the only personality on display here, between Weatherman‘s leads and Landgraf‘s bass kicking in for the burner finish of “You or Me,” or pretty much anything Moore touches throughout, be it the cowbell on “Swallowing the Anchor” or just the way he sits back and holds together songs that go to so many different places.
I won’t mince words or pretend I’m not a Corrosion of Conformity fan. One suspects that for most who hear it, Good God / Baad Man will not be their first exposure to the band. So much the better to become a fan all over again.
Corrosion of Conformity, “You and Me” official video
Corrosion of Conformity, “Gimme Some More” official video
Corrosion of Conformity, Good God / Baad Man (2026)
Corrosion of Conformity website
Corrosion of Conformity on Instagram
Corrosion of Conformity on Facebook
