Fear, Emptiness, Decibel: Corrosion of Conformity’s Blind Inducted Into the Hall of Fame!
Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…
We’ve already given Tar Heel terrors Corrosion of Conformity the Hall of Fame treatment back in issue #072, our first Electric Wizard cover (hmmm… could that be a hint of stoneriffic things to come?), for 1985’s forward-thinking sludge-punk rager, Animosity. As noted by founding drummer Reed Mullin in a comprehensive 2012 MetalSucks’ Q&A conducted by our own Justin Norton, “There seems like there have been several distinct eras of COC. There was the hardcore punk era with Eye for an Eye and Animosity and [the] Technocracy [EP]. Then there was the Blind era. Then there was the Pepper [Keenan] era, where we did very well and did giant tours. And now, we’re here.” Indeed, 1991’s Blind was such an exciting, bold change in direction, it gets its very own era in COC lore—and now its own Decibel HOF.
Axeman Keenan—who around the same time would become one of the driving forces in NOLA institution Down—joined COC under the impression that he might take over vocal duties from recently departed bassist Mike Dean, but the conch was passed to fellow newcomer, NYC hardcore fiend Karl Agell. Both roles were perfect fits, and the now-quintet set to work on refining a propulsive, infectious, groove-driven metal attack culled from Deep Purple, Black Flag, Void, MC5 and Metallica, which could sit comfortably alongside the “alternative metal” of the day, i.e., Soundgarden, Kyuss, Prong and Tool. That doesn’t even cover the anti-racist, anti-war lyrical content that pushes this record over the top. Pick up the Pallbearer issue to get the whole story on a different kind of COC crossover classic.
The September 2014 issue of Decibel also features Mastodon, Crowbar, and Goatwhore, and can be purchased here… but why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss an issue?
