Corrosion of Conformity – "Good God / Baad Man"

Alternative title: "Good God / Baad Album"

Oh boy, do I remember tripping on this little album called "Wiseblood" back around when it came out (i.e., 1996). As a coming-of-age metalhead, that one hit just the right spot for yours truly, as did its '94 predecessor "Deliverance" once I started digging into the band's back catalogue. (The band in question, of course, being Corrosion of Conformity, for those too strung out on lighter fluid to have that figured out yet).

Even though "America's Volume Dealer" (2000) was a disappointment for me initially, I eventually learned to appreciate that it was not only a logical next step for the band, but first and foremost that it hella rocked, and that C.o.C. managed to dip their toes a bit further into the mainstream without compromising what I felt was the core of the band – namely, to combine the noble art of songwriting with the equally noble art of ass-kicking. And Hell, even "In the Arms of God" ('05) had some tangible qualities going for it.

But of course, vocalist/guitarist Pepper Keenan had to prioritize Down, which probably made sense from a financial standpoint, all else being equal. So the rest of the band released a coupla albums without him that I never bothered checking out, and when they'd finally reunited and put out "No Cross No Crown" ('18), I was too busy emigrating and becoming self-employed to take much notice. So I've been hungry for new material from C.o.C.

My first impression is that this new album of theirs sounds very improvised. My second is that the rhythm guitar takes up very little space and has virtually no treble to its tone – no fault of my speaker. While the verse melody in opener "Good God? / Final Dawn" is almost an excuse for itself, the chorus has a cool, fist-bashing atmosphere going on with Keenan exclaiming "Mover! I'm a reality mover!". So I do recognize the band.

The lead guitar, however, is halfway drowning under a thick wall of woolly rhythm guitar that's appeared in the mix all of a sudden. And equally suddenly, the song ends with a bunch of random sounds from what appears to be the recording sessions. But then "You Or Me" takes over with a bit more riffing, which is cool. However, that new drummer kid seems to be trying way too hard, never landing in a steady beat. This all kinda sounds like C.o.C, but so far it's only shadows of those riffs, melodies, and, in general, those to-the-bone songwriting tropes that made the band a powerhouse in the '90s.

All of a sudden, just like the opener, the song seems to have ended almost before it got properly started. Then there's a lot of feedback noises that just keep on going with no apparent purpose, and eventually it turns out that it's still part of the song, because then there's a couple of big, solid chord punches leading to a Sabbathesque up-tempo C-section – again featuring a solo that's way too low in the mix. Then we're back in the opening riff for ONE round, but then some guy is shouting something unintelligible, and then, we spontaneously enter a new song with an opening riff that has no idea where it's headed, and with Keenan pretty much just shouting.

Also "The Handler" features a riff too obscure for its own good. But here, out of nowhere, Keenan sounds more like Ozzy than like himself. What the Hell is going on?? That flat-second-step tonality wouldn't be able to carry anything catchy, which is the #1 thing we need at this point. I used to love this band because it was heavy, blues-based, southern hard rock; this record so far is just spaced out, directionless, and often annoyingly repetitive. Had this been a debuting band, I would've still been unimpressed, but nowhere near as unimpressed as I am so far.

The only effect this material has is that it makes me yearn for the days where this band actually wrote songs that had direction, staying power, and personality.

The slow and atmospheric "Run For Your Life" could be said to be the high point here – although again, for whatever reason, Keenan chooses to do some more weird experiments with his voice. In this case, it's a sort of quivering, almost whimpering technique, bereft of the same solid, southern resonance he's normally rocking. However, both his vocal lines and the riff are more consistent than in any track so far (not that it's saying a lot), and both of these along with the chorus remind me of the band's own wonderful "Redemption City" from "Wiseblood". So that does have – indeed – a certain redemptive effect.

… But then, why, oh why does the band choose to dishonor all this by simply putting it in neutral and letting it run itself into indefinite monotony after what would have been better off as the ending? I sit around, expecting things to happen, but no. Another disappointment in a pure series of those. One more verse and chorus get slapped on for what seems to be good measures, but then, some painstakingly drawn-out sample from… a crime program or whatever? I don't know, and I don't care. The first half of this is a good song, but the whole thing ends up unnecessarily clocking in at more than NINE fucking minutes.

After this, pseudo-title track "Baad Man" seems to be a sort of half-dry, half-funky paraphrase of the band's own "Long Whip / Big America", only this one is perfectly bukkake'd with a continuous load of unnecessary production details that only serve to confuse the listener. And as the chorus takes off and Keenan goofily sings, "He was a reeeeeeal baaad maaaan", rolling the 'r' and everything, with all the deliberate anti-grace of a Frank Zappa, one of the supposedly biggest focal points of this whole deal turns into one big forehead-slapper.

During the uptempo "Asleep On The Killing Floor", Keenan is simply speaking the verse and, once again, shouting tunelessly in the chorus. The drum fills are almost constant. Goddammit, does this drummer ever play an honest Phil Rudd style chair-and-table? But then, he actually enters a downright tom-based rhythm on top of some echo clattering, background talking, electronic noises, and lead guitar noodling – none of which ever saw anything resembling a purpose.

At this point, it is downright painful to listen to this awkward album whose awkward title, which I will not even pronounce, rightly represents its awkward material. You know how people tend to talk about the Beatles' white album ('68) as the problematic one due to its length and its share of filler material? Well, this album is kinda like the Beatles' white album – only without 100% of all the good songs and 95% of all the good ideas, leaving just the half-baked ones along with the unfocused experiments and the aimless jams.

To be fair, some of the things on here don't sound downright bad. But even the less bad things are but a shadow of what this band used to be. Hell, even the singular riffs and hooks are shadows of riffs and hooks themselves. You can hear that they do have ideas behind them, but those are simply not sufficiently cultivated.

For example, there are some clear, tangible themes in the lyrics and the verse melody in "Handcuff County" which might've worked under other circumstances. But the whole thing sounds like an unfinished jam with a constant background murmur, featuring another shitty lead that was never properly developed, but rather sounds like it's played by yours truly after one too many pints of Trappist tripels.

I used to love this band because it was heavy, blues-based, southern hard rock; this record is just spaced out, directionless, and often annoyingly repetitive.

… And then all of a sudden, drummer-guy opens the hi-hat for half a measure, as if to signify that we're going somewhere else, but the rest of the band keeps playing the same ONE figure they've played so far, so he closes it again – only to apparently change his mind again after another half a measure, open it again, and THEN go to the ride cymbal so as to illude a chorus. – But the other instruments keep on playing the exact same pissing thing.

Goddammit; stop putting your dumbass jams onto albums when you've hardly squeezed any fucking songs out of them. The only effect this material has is that it makes me yearn for the days where this band actually wrote songs that had direction, staying power, and personality. None of this material has any of those qualities. I mean, are they just trying to get out of their contract with Nuclear Blast here or what??

We do marginally pick up toward the ending, though. The acoustic "Brickman" is so sparsely instrumentated that it actually sounds like a downright song, but it is so much a case of "too little too late" that that expression sounds more misplaced than when any idiot uses the word "LiTeRaLLy" wrongly or redundantly, as any idiot has been doing for too many years at this point. But then "Forever Amplified" actually goes ahead and presents a consistent, tangible riff. Whether that riff is cool or not hardly even matters, because I am so starved for actual riffs at this point that almost anything will suffice.

But of course, as if to conclude a grand study in anticlimaxes with a minor one of those, said riff simply gets to loop and loop with a couple of drum fills and some feedback noises in the background, itself only to become feedback noises without having led anywhere. Then another, more half-assed and completely unrelated riff starts, which gets to be the focal point for the second half of the same "tune", which may as well have been called something different at this point.

Also, some completely fucking random R&B vocals get slapped on at the end, supposedly as to adhere to one of those DiVeRSitY quotas that totally aren't forced or invasive at all, because EVERYONE LOVES DIVERSITY. Unless they're different than us, of course, in which case they're bad and wrong and have bad and wrong values and should have DivErSiTY forced upon them, because that's not fascist or conformist at all, and that couldn't possibly restrict or restrain art or entertainment in any way or backfire socially in any other possible manner… right?

Actually, you know what? Speaking of tokenism, there have, of course, been those token excited fanboys ecstatically exclaiming that this album is "exactly what the world needs right now". And you know what? Those fanboys are right. Because fuck the world.

For the sake of all the poor, stillborn songs on here, and for the sake of my long-standing affinity towards the band, I am willing to grant a rating corresponding to 25%. But I'm being generous.

Rating: 1.5 out of 6

Genre: Southern hard rock / a one-hour stroke
Release date: 3/4/2026
Label: Nuclear Blast
Producer: Lou Reed + Metallica. Just kidding; it's Warren Riker. But, y'know...

Thanks for reading.
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