Corrosion of Conformity

Corrosion of Conformity came howling out of Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1982 as a hardcore punk band, and over the years they slowed down, sank their teeth into the blues and emerged as a heavy metal band with red clay caked on its boots. Guitarist Woody Weatherman is the only man who has been there all along, but the lineup most fans swear by is Weatherman, bassist Mike Dean, drummer Reed Mullin and Pepper Keenan, who joined on guitar in 1989 and later took over lead vocals.

Three albums in, Eye for an Eye, Animosity and Blind had caught the ear of Columbia Records, who signed them in 1993, and Deliverance, the next year, broke them wide with "Albatross" and "Clean My Wounds". Wiseblood followed in 1996. By the time of America's Volume Dealer in 2000 they were masters of the swaggering, sludgy Southern groove, and "Congratulations Song" rolls along like a muscle car with a busted muffler. In the Arms of God, from 2005, cut deeper and darker, with "Rise River Rise" as a slow-burning highlight.

The band went quiet in 2006 and came back in 2010 without Keenan, who was off touring and recording with Down; he was back in the fold by December 2014. Mullin died in 2020, with John Green taking the drum stool, and Dean left again in 2024. Their 2018 album No Cross No Crown was their first to reach the Billboard top 100, and Good God / Baad Man, their eleventh studio album, arrived in 2026.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.