ALL ACCESS: Henry Rollins

CD Review: Motor Sister – Ride
Metal Blade Records
All Access Rating: A

Motor Sister - Ride 2015

Motor Sister is sort of a reincarnation of Mother Superior, a trio from Los Angeles that unabashedly glorified ballsy '70s American hard rock, fiery proto-punk and bluesy soul in the '90s before calling it quits in the early 2000s after a run of eight strong, and sadly under-appreciated, albums.

Mother Superior could never break through the flannel-clad ceiling of the grunge era, but they did catch the ear of Anthrax's Scott Ian, as well as punk icon Henry Rollins. In fact, the Jim Wilson-led outfit once served as Rollins' backup band, with session work for the likes of Alice Cooper, U2 producer Daniel Lanois, Meat Loaf, Iggy Pop and many others also on their lengthy list of credits.

Now comes Motor Sister, a quickly thrown together project that grew out of Ian's burning desire to reunite Mother Superior for his recent 50th birthday party, where the groundwork for the Metal Blade Records release of heady, straightforward rock 'n' roll that is Ride was laid. First, there was a quick rehearsal, and then a blazing performance of Mother Superior material from Ian, drummer John Tempesta (The Cult, White Zombie), bassist Joey Vera (Fates Warning, Armored Saint) and Ian's wife Pearl Aday – a frequent collaborator with Wilson on her own solo work – that left the 25 or so people who witnessed it, including some industry types, gobsmacked.

Wasting no time whatsoever, Motor Sister – still basking in the afterglow of that momentous occasion – went into the studio with producer Jay Ruston and knocked out Ride in a couple of days, the organic spontaneity of those sessions emanating from earthy, soulful rockers like "This Song Reminds Me of You" and the sunny Zeppelin-meets-Sly and The Family Stone funk workout "Pretty in the Morning," as well as the swaggering, meaty riff bonanza "Get That Girl."

Reminiscent of the wild, frenzied punk fury stoked by the MC5 in their heyday, "A Hole" and "Fork in the Road" are conflagrations that burn hot and fast, while the hormonal urges of "Beg Borrow Steal" and "Little Motor Sister" – from which the new band's name was taken – have the crunchy, stomping appeal of early KISS or UFO. These old Mother Superior songs didn't need a kick in the ass, but Motor Sister gives it to them anyway, Tempesta's drumming breaking rocks in the hot sun, the sharply defined tones of the guitars rich and powerful, and the trailer-park desperation in the vocalizing of Pearl and Wilson recalling that of X's John Doe and Exene Cervenka, especially in a catchy little slice of up-tempo, Americana-inspired jangle called "Head Hanging Low." And then there's "Devil Wind," where strummed acoustic guitar lends a sense of mystery before giving way to grinding, rumbling metallic riffs, its dual personality, so vulnerable and angry, a vague harbinger of trouble on the horizon.

Hitch a Ride with Motor Sister, and let them take you to a place and time you thought had disappeared, an era when good, honest, simple songwriting and stacks of amplifiers delivered messages of sexual healing, lusty adventure and hard-earned life lessons.
– Peter Lindblad

In stores on March 11, 2015.
Metal Blade Records: Motor Sister

CD Review: Corrosion of Conformity - Eye for an Eye (reissue)

Candlelight Records

All Access Review: B+

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.

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