This week’s Thank Satan It’s Friday has a lot of great music, though the first two songs by Corrosion Of Conformity and Of Mice & Men are particularly interesting. Both bands recently underwent pretty drastic changes in the vocal department (the former being a comeback and the latter being an interesting decision), and both bands are totally killing it!
Plus we’ve got some jams from Good Tiger, Sect, Godflesh, and Green Druid.
Corrosion Of Conformity – “Cast The First Stone”
It’s finally here! After 12 years between albums, vocalist and guitarist Pepper Keenan has returned to Corrosion Of Conformity and will release a new album called No Cross No Crown on January 5, though the story is a little more complicated than that. Keenan recorded In The Arms Of God with the band in 2005, left in 2006, and Corrosion Of Conformity continued on as a trio for the next while. Then in 2014 Keenan came back, one tour led to many tours, and eventually the quartet recorded some new music.
“Cast The First Stone” is exactly the amount of raucous heaviness you’ve been missing in your life since In The Arms of God, though I’d say it’s probably a touch heavier than that. There’s really nothing else to say about this one other than Pepper is very clearly back, y’all.
Of Mice & Men – “Warzone”
I’ll be honest. When vocalist Austin Carlile announced his departure from Of Mice & Men I didn’t really care. The band was just never my thing and I figured they’d just find someone who sounds like him and carry on in that same vein. Instead, bassist Aaron Pauley stepped up as the new singer and Of Mice & Men is all of a sudden ridiculously good.
“Warzone” is just straight up thrashy violence, plain and simple. The grooves are massive, the riffs are destructive, and Of Mice & Men is clearly not afraid to dive headfirst into some seriously heavy sounds now. Whatever the full Defy album is going to sound like at this point is fairly unknown outside the first three singles, but I’m completely interested in this one. Pre-order Defy here before its January 19 release.
Good Tiger– “Grip Shoes”
Good Tiger, the band with ex-Tesseract vocalist Elliot Coleman, ex-The Safety Fire guitarists Derya Nagle and Joaquin Ardiles, ex-The Faceless drummer Alex Rüdinger and bassist Morgan Sinclair, is just the right mixture of soulful and rock-ish to really stand out from the pack. The band is streaming its new dreamy song “Grip Shoes,” which features Coleman looking a lot like Jared Leto lately.
We Will All Be Gone is out February 9.
Godflesh – “Be God”
Godflesh‘s new album Post-Self was billed as one that sees the band going back to its roots in post-punk and going in a less heavy direction. “Be God” is the antithesis of that statement. The song is straight up the soundtrack to driving through a machine-stuffed version of hell with Justin Broadrick screaming at you from a distance while plugged into 100,000 distortion pedals. There is nothing un-heavy about this song. There is nothing calming or even relatively not unsettling about this song. Godflesh is still doing what it’s doing, and it’s glorious.
Green Druid – “Dead Tree”
Hey, do you like Sleep and Electric Wizard? Then I’ve got a band for you and it’s Green Druid. This is stoner rock through and through, make no mistake about it. It’s plodding metal that uses varying degrees of distortion and one-note riffs, though what I dig about Green Druid is that the band actively tries to build a soundscape throughout “Dead Tree.” It’s not bludgeoning stoner metal that relies on you being too high to know it’s shit music. Green Druid actually writes in transitions and layers into their music to really make it interesting for everyone.
Ashen Blood is out January 17.
Sect – “Stripes”
Sect features vocalist Chris Colohan (Cursed), guitarist James Chang (ex-Catharsis), guitarist Scott Crouse (Earth Crisis), bassist Ian Edwards (Earth Crisis), and drummer Andy Hurley (Fall Out Boy) and has been releasing a new song pretty much every week at this point. If you’re looking for some Trap Them/All Pigs Must Die Kurt Ballou-styled heaviness, then this one is for you. Plus it’s a short song and doesn’t lose a single ounce of energy from start to finish!
Sect is dropping its new album No Cure For Death on November 24.
