Corrosion of Conformity - "In The Arms Of God" (2005)

Hello children, let's talk about Corrosion Of Conformity's best album, In The Arms Of God. Or to be precise: let's talk about drummer Stanton Moore, who on this record replaced the dull and rigid Reed Mullin.

While COC were always a compentent band, they were never anything spectacular in my book. Many a metalhead has had a wank or two to Deliverance and Wiseblood, but most metalheads are morons anyway. They're clueless.

The addition of Stanton Moore to the line-up was exactly what the band needed. Basically, on this album Moore did for COC what Brann Dailor does for Mastodon. Or perhaps what Jean-Paul Gaster does for Clutch: Adding a completely different layer, playing around the beat, adding fills no regular rock or metal drummer would even think of. Sometimes even sounding like he's playing a different song from the rest of the band.

Which of course could be explain by the simple fact that Moore wasn't used to the old tried and true ways of playing metal, and probably didn't care anyway, he just did his thing in his own way. Perhaps at first listen the messed up drumming here could be coming from your usual metal caveman with a sunken forehead playing crazy shit to prove how much crazy shit he can come up with. Nope, it's simply metal drumming filtered through a body that's been mostly rocking New Orleans jazz for twenty odd years.

It actually reminds me a lot Lars Ulrich's work in the 80's, especially on Ride The Lightning, where he kept playing shit that made absolutely no sense. A lot of the times it sounded completely backwards to what any other metal drummer would do. Stuff that shouldn't work but somehow did.

It of course also harkens back to the golden days of proto heavy metal, with people like Bill Ward, Paul Whaley, Mitch Mitchell, Ginger Baker and John Bonham busting out crazy beats and thundering rolls that any jazz drummer would be proud of.

Unfortunately, Moore was just a session player. If COC knew what was good for 'em, they'd ditch that Patterson dude they got now and force Moore to join full time.

(mp3) COC - Stone breaker
(mp3) COC - Dirty hands empty pockets
(mp3) COC - In the arms of god (recommended!)

Buy it @ Amazon.com

The video for Stone Breaker: