Metal Riot

Corrosion Of Conformity with Pepper in the line-up is by far the most popular version of the band, though all their records over the years are terrific. Anyway, No Cross No Crown is the name of the pending first C.O.C. record with Pepper back in the band after a little over a decade. The first single is fantastic and will rock you out of all the misery in the air with some glorious guitars, a potent rhythmic charge and Pepper’s hoarse and bluesy, assured and gruff vocals. God damn, I needed this today!

Pre-Order No Cross No Crown HERE.

“Reed called me and mentioned maybe playing a couple shows,” Keenan recalls. “I said, ‘Let’s just go to Europe and see if it works.’ So we went to Europe and then ended up going back four times in one year… We toured for a year and then started tracking about ten or eleven months ago.”

No Cross No Crown will be released via Nuclear Blast Entertainment worldwide on January 12th, 2018 on CD, digital, vinyl, and cassette formats.

Listening to John Garcia’s great kinda ZZ Top slow burner “The Blvd” and browsing online. I read some welcome news about a guitarist we all know and love.

Lambgoat is reporting that Pepper Keenan (aka The coolest mofo in showbiz) is still in NOLA sludge kings Down, despite also hitting the trail again with veritable punk rock AND southern metal institution Corrosion Of Conformity! COC confirmed he is back and doing a UK tour.

Corrosion of Conformity are reuniting with guitarist/vocalist Pepper Keenan for UK and European dates. Other than a few surprise appearances, this will be the first time Keenan has toured with the band since 2006. This will also be the first time the “Deliverance” lineup of the group has played together since 2001.

While IX was one of the better hard rock albums of 2014, you gotta love COC with Pepper as well. Any line up of the band is a real treat.

For dates see BELOW.

Vocalist Karl Agell, who sang on CORROSION OF CONFORMITY‘s 1991 seminal Blind full-length and founding drummer Reed Mullin will perform the LP in its entirety on Sunday, November 9th at the Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh, North Carolina. The concert is a benefit show for Katherine Ludwig, former editor of long-running heavy metal magazine, Metal Maniacs, who is currently battling non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Footage of the band rehearsing for the upcoming performance (plus jamming some Slayer and Motorhead!!!) can be viewed at THIS LOCATION.

Comments Mullin, “I only heard about Katherine’s medical problems a month ago, and the minute after, I was on the phone with Karl Agell to see if he’d be into doing a benefit for her. I’m not sure folks today know just how instrumental she was in introducing and exposing your typical ‘metal maniac’ of the early ’90s to so many bad ass bands. A lot of which, like COC, had never been given an audience like that before. We had been in fanzines with circulations of maybe a couple hundred, but Metal Maniacs was thousands and thousands! A great advocate for little known underground metal, as well as hardcore/punk bands, she promoted the Blind album to the point where by the end of the year it was on virtually everyone’s top ten metal albums of 1991. I can’t overstate how important she was to COC’s success. Without her, Blind wouldn’t have sold what it did. And after that, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say there probably would never have been a Deliverance album. Katherine Ludwig is wonderful person and I hope we can give back a little for all the goodness she gave us.”

A Facebook page has been launched by Alicia Morgan, who worked as Ludwig’s assistant and was editor for several issues of the magazine. Writes Morgan: “[Katherine would] cover bands before they were on the mainstream radar: Sepultura, Voivod, Prong, Kreator, White Zombie, Obituary, Cathedral, Cro-Mags, Neurosis, Eyehategod, Carcass, Corrosion Of Conformity etc. She gave a voice to underground punk/doom and crust bands like  Amebix, Deviated Instinct and Winter. She gave a platform to unsigned bands and ‘zines. In her editorials, she wrote about issues that meant something to her. Racism. Sexism. Human rights. Animal rights. Vegetarianism. Homophobia. Even if she got flack about it, she’d soldier on, and call people out… I’m asking you to give Katherine, this leader, this beautiful and strong warrior, donations that will relieve some of the burden to ease costs that go along with all of the guts and glory that go along with chemo, and cancer, and everything and everything that will help as she helped all of you.”

Katherine Ludwig Benefit Concert

November 9th, 2014

Doors 5pm – Show 6pm.

Lincoln Theater – 126 E Cabarrus St. – Raleigh, NC  27601

$15 advance/$20 day of show.

Buy tickets HERE.

http://www.youcaring.com/medical-fundraiser/lymphomaniac-help-katherine-ludwig-annihilate-her-cancer-/224784

IX from C.O.C. is some of the best fuzzed out tones from the band this side of America’s Volume Dealer, perfect to ease the aches and pains of what ails you or to help incur new bruises rocking out.

Just a real rambling rumble here , a sense of friendship and exploration in these tunes. One of my favorite albums in the band’s career, actually. My fave since In The Arms of God, which I dig as much as Deliverance and Animosity and more than Blind, to be honest. Though any era of C.O.C. is the bees knees, the total shit, rock n roll, etc. The band are touring  with Bl’ast!, Brant Bjork & The Low Desert Punk Band and Lord Dying in the best, coolest fucking package tour of the year, in my opinion. I spoke to veteran musical soldier Mike Dean about the tour and the latest John Custer collaborative

C.O.C. audio event, HERE.

Candlelight Records today confirms June 24th as the North American release date of IX, the new album from CORROSION OF CONFORMITY. Produced by the band and long-time comrade John Custer, the album and lead single “On Your Way” will be available for preorders via iTunes, Amazon, and other popular outlets beginning May 13th.

“This album is another step forward for us,” adds Weatherman.  “It seems like we keep heading more and more toward our rawer live sound with the studio recordings.”

Click HERE for track listing and more info!