CD Review: Corrosion of Conformity - Eye for an Eye (reissue)
Candlelight Records
All Access Review: B+
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| Corrosion of Conformity - Eye for an Eye 2012 |
Eye for an Eye had
been missing for so long that many Corrosion of Conformity followers had given
up searching for it, fearing that it was lost forever. Released in 1983, the
furious debut from these punk-metal crossover firebrands had been out of print quite
possibly since the Reagan administration, it undoubtedly having burned out
rather than faded away. Then, a funny thing happened.
The Animosity
lineup of Corrosion of Conformity – perhaps the most combustible combination of
rumbling, roiling hardcore and Sabbath-inspired riffage that underground metal
has ever produced – returned with a vengeance in early 2012, their self-titled
LP a satisfying contrast of sludge (“The Doom”), sinewy grooves (“The
Moneychangers” and “What We Become”) and speed (“Leeches”) that shifts tempos
easily and often and immerses itself in the thick, heavy psychedelia of the
Soundgarden-like “Come Not Here.” Finding audiences hungry for COC’s meaty
riffs, Candlelight Records thought that the time was right to revisit the
thrashing, combative Eye for an Eye
and tack on the Six Songs with Mike
Singing EP for good measure.
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| Corrosion of Conformity - S/T 2012 |
Featuring the original COC lineup of singer Eric Eycke, Mike
Dean on bass, guitarist Woody Weatherman, and drummer Reed Mullin, Eye for an Eye is … well, a bit
misunderstood. Often characterized, and rightly so, as a high-velocity hardcore
record that wraps itself in Henry Rollins’s Black Flag, Eye for an Eye is, indeed, that and bruising, frenzied tracks like
“Broken Will,” “Rabid Dog,” “Coexist,” “Dark Thoughts” and “Excluded” – all
checking in at under 2:50 – that race at a breakneck pace won’t disabuse
anybody of that notion. It is a raw and reckless album, with playing that is fast and
loose, and the violence of “What” and the growling viciousness of “Negative
Outlook” – as angry as a badger protecting its home – are also punk as all get
out. But, there are moments where this version of COC betrays its metal
inclinations, and not just when they deliver a snarling, torn-and-frayed take
on Judas Priest's cover of Peter Green's “Green Manalishi.”
Before “Indifferent” threatens to blow apart, as it does in
the choruses, the verses crawl menacingly, quickly building in intensity until
all hell breaks loose. Many of the song intros consist of trudging, brawny riffs
wrenched into difficult, tortured shapes, the kind The Melvins might sculpt out
of the twisted metal wreckage of a car crash. And on “L.S.” – a song that has
all the wicked charm of a murderous hillbilly dragging a corpse out behind a
shed – COC clearly reveals a fundamental, if still in its formative phase,
understanding of metal dynamics and a taste for brutality, even more evident on
the raging “Rednekkk.” Tweaking Southern-rock conventions, it’s an absolute
nuclear meltdown of a song.
Eye for an Eye is
a ragged record, the product of a band in its infancy that is just beginning to
question its identity. The Six Songs with
Mike Singing EP, originally released in 1989 and featuring very old tracks
with Mike Dean on lead vocals for the only time in the history of COC, presents
a cleaner, more developed vision of COC’s punk-metal hybrid, as fine specimens
of early thrash-metal like “Center of the World,” “Citizen” and “Not for Me” burn
white-hot and surge toward their fiery ends with hostility and ferocious guitars.
Growing up as left-leaning political and social animals – always spoiling for a
fight in lyrics that take on opposing points of view with a ferocious
intelligence – in the land of Jesse Helms and other right-wing demagogues must
have driven COC to madness. Thankfully, they’ve harnessed that wild,
unpredictable energy of Eye for an Eye
and exacted their revenge, expanding their scope of influences to include more
soulful elements and constructing well-defined, varied song structures that could withstand earthquakes. They’re still a force to
be reckoned with.
-
Peter Lindblad
