REVIEW: Corrosion of Conformity - Good God / Baad Man

It really has been a long time since the boys in CORROSION OF CONFORMITY graced us mortals with an album. As much as it doesn't feel like it due to some disease-related shenanigans, 2018 was a really fucking long time ago. And now they've got a new album out, the first since stick-slinger and founding member Reed Mullin departed this mortal coil in 2020. Then during the pandemic, bassist and fellow founding member Mike Dean decided to step out, which left only two members, Pepper and Woody, to pick up the pieces. They must have deliberated for a long time, ultimately bringing in previous drummer Stanton Moore and bassist Bobby "Rock" Landgraf for their new record. After the longest hiatus between albums the band has ever endured, will it live up to the hype?

As for the format, Good God / Baad Man is a double album, no points for guessing what the names of each half are. Given this, a lot of the tracks here harken back to the band's earlier days when they were steeped in punk-crossover worship. Doubtless, there’s still heaps of sludge in here, enough to tarmac a highway, so don't panic. It feels more like the band is feeling its way toward a newer sound with its newer members, yet it remains recognisably COC through and through. The opener, Good God? / Final Dawn, functions very much as an overture, it doesn't really stand on its own, but it primes you for the entire album experience to come. You're unlikely to see anybody saving this song into a playlist anytime soon. You or Me? is a forceful, propulsive arrangement that rides high on its beat until it dissolves into a strange ambient chamber, before surging back to energy to finish things off.

Gimme Some Moore was almost certainly a jam name that stubbornly stuck as the song’s title. This track seems to be a showcase of their new drummer's vitality, resulting in an upbeat, sludgy number, though nothing life-changing. Bonus points if you catch MINISTRY's Al Jourgensen lurking on backing vocals. The Handler has quite a formidable riff behind it and some of Pepper's best vocal work on the album. You can picture yourself trucking down a long stretch of nothing to this one; it fits the bill like a glove. Bedouin's Hand has a peculiar name that oddly suits it; the guitar carries an eastern flair and the drums loosen their structure for a jammier instrumental passage. Run for Your Life is more of what we've come to expect from these guys, opening with a brilliantly flanged riff and delivering nine minutes of 70s-infused rock wisdom. Cool as fuck. This could very well be the direction COC might want to entrench themselves in going forward; more FU MANCHU-esque forays into the long, dusty instrumental side of their sound, more ruminative and unhurried than anything. The band as it stands now has palpable chemistry, and it would not be amiss for them to fully embrace this facet of their musicality.

Kicking off the second side of the record with some beautiful patois, Baad Man feels like a long-lost GRAND FUNK RAILROAD tune, with an incredibly fun to sing chorus (“he was a reeeeeeeal badmaaaan!”). It could just as easily double as the end-credits music to a Bruce Willis film in which he stars as a mechanic taking revenge on a group of ruffians with a spanner. You'll have to listen to see what's meant by that, just picture it. Lose Yourself has one shot, one opportunity to impress, and what results is a song that doesn't distinguish itself in any particular way, though it does a decent job of filling out the album. Mandra Sonos is a one-minute lute solo that abruptly terminates with some GEEZERist N.I.B.-type bass licking, leading directly into Asleep on the Killing Floor, a pounding, bluesy track that barrels headlong like a big rig blocking the middle lane on the highway.

Handcuff Country is one hell of a Southern number, low-riding on a bass groove so languid and carefree that it wouldn't be out of place in an episode of My Name Is Earl. Swallowing the Anchor is another groovy ditty that doesn't mean business until the almighty cowbell is introduced halfway through, then it really gets your feet tapping with a "neener-neener" guitar line. Brickman brings some much-needed tonal differentiation to the record, because as gratifying as the album's cavalcade of "driving down the highway, hell yeah" songs are, no listening experience is complete without a more contemplative number in the mix. The closing track, Forever Amplified, brings the sludge down in bucketloads across a six-and-a-half-minute cascade, featuring an extraordinary soulful turn from jazz-funk vocalist ANJELIKA "JELLY" JOSEPH, who belts out the album's final lines with conviction. For the more casual COC enjoyer, this should be the one to appease them, one hell of a strong closer indeed, and one that's reminiscent of the best material from Deliverance and Blind.

Hooey. So what's the verdict on Good God / Baad Man? Buy the album. Buy the album so that you can put it on your turntable, CD player, lithograph, or whatever-the-fuck, and do some astral projecting. This really does feel like a double album, few songs particularly stand out in isolation, but the record as a whole simply works. That's more than likely down to the improvisational nature of the whole thing; the sense of the band committing more than a few jam sessions to tape and fashioning them into tracks is utterly palpable. There's also a musical freedom, a "fuck it" ethos that permeates the entire affair. "Hell, let's put a jazz-funk vocalist at the end there." "How about a five-minute guitar solo here?" "How about a monologue about suicide?" Ahhhh, fuck it!

There's an effortlessness to it, something nonchalant and unencumbered that simply doesn't give a fuck, conjuring a musical flow-state that translates directly to the listening experience. It's the sonic equivalent of sitting on the porch on a long, sweltering summer's day in your rocking chair, shotgun across the lap and hooch in hand, just waiting for the next thing to wander too close to your property. There's no doubt that Reed would be proud, gratified that the band still makes good music for the sake of it. The record feels far more unguarded than their previous albums, and that's a damn good thing. Run free, Corrosion of Conformity, the time has come for you to assume your rightful place as reeeeeal badmen.

Score: 7/10

Good God / Baad Man will be released on 3rd April 2026 via Nuclear Blast Records.

Words: Kiarash Golshani

Photos: Danin Drahos