Corrosion of Conformity (COC) - Eye for an Eye + Six Songs
Review: As one of the horizon expanders who brought us thrash music, Corrosion of Conformity fell heavily onto the punk side of song styling with riff sculpting taken from the book of doom bands such as Black Sabbath or Saint Vitus. Gratifyingly intense with its hardcore drive, this music with deliberate use of negative space in tempo creates a plane on which its structure can expand.
One- and two-riff songs dictate a clarity which is underscored with savage hardcore howls in vocals that presage death and black metal in their Motorhead-style rough-edged voice that gains an aura of overworked anguish as each song develops. Percussion, in an age before the blast beat, slides between rock or punk style patterns moved between a number of tempos ranging from the rash and tearing canter of extreme hardcore to lazy pulse languidity. Amazingly, compositional fragmentation deploys varied melodies which make it simple to distinguish these songs as collections of riffs over rhythm with fragmentary layers of vocals providing additional frenzy.
For the classic feeling of a well-executed riff, or an example of a thrash band that uses more chord forms than the major barre, Corrosion of Conformity distinguish themselves alongside Cryptic Slaughter and Dirty Rotten Imbeciles (DRI) as integral fusion of metal and punk. What makes this album really gratifying however is the sense of fervent outreach and belief in life beyond these strife-ridden and urgent anthems of terror contra will.