Corrosion of Conformity - No Cross No Crown

Four years after their lazily named ninth album, Corrosion of Conformity return with a project way less dense than I’ve come to expect from them, harping very heavily on southern grooves and a laid-back stoner metal approach. This has worked wonders in the past for the band when they came through with truly groovy albums and unforgettable riffs, but No Cross No Crown sounds like a band desperately trying to churn out too much of something they don’t have much of in them anymore. 

“The Luddite” and “Cast the First Stone” kick the album off well with sludgy guitars and nasty vocals, but the album’s momentum is broken up by mellow instrumental interludes (which sound like they just need to be fully expanded upon) and some serious duds, the straight-up annoying “Little Man” a particularly taxing example. “E.L.M.” proves the band to still be much more suited to slower tempos and unsure of how to apply themselves to more upbeat songs.

The more multi-movement “Nothing Left to Say” dirges and floats through thick smoke in classic fashion for the band, building a quaking mudslide of sludge but still not much in the way of anything special for the band or their style.

“Old Disaster” finds the band in a comfortable groove, but seemingly unsure what to do with it structurally other than dance around some sludge metal guitar tricks to buy time.

The brooding doom prophesied by the mellow but dark title track shows huge hints of Neurosis influence, and it leads nicely into “A Quest to Believe (A Call to the Void)”, a well-structured, groovy downpour of sludge with a slightly cathartic guitar line strewn throughout and wrapping what ended up being my favorite song on the album up nicely. If only the album had ended there; “Son and Daughter” is a completely forgettable, rudimentary, Black Sabbath imitation that I certainly had enough of from Electric Wizard last year.

Overall, it’s an album that struggles with what was once the band’s strength, but still comes through with some hazy sludge worthy of at least a fair try or two. Corrosion of Conformity seem to be getting left behind in the genre they helped boost into relevance, with bands like Mastodon putting a proggier twist to their sound and bands like Neurosis consistently putting out far more experimental and interesting music than them. No Cross No Crown is, unfortunately, further evidence of that, but it bears enough to give more than a thread of hope that the band still have their capabilities about them and have a good reserve of music still in them.