CORROSION OF CONFORMITY -"Tarquinius Superbus" [Lyric Video]

It's another slow day at the office and the D.C. Sniper Team is passing the time with texts about C.O.C. and their new album. And whether or not they could possibly put out anything that will hold a candle to their early material. Their first three albums are just full of hits, there's no denying that. Eye For An Eye, Technocracy and Animosity are just all around greats. But then the 90's and beyond brought us Blind, Deliverance, Wiseblood and some others. None of those did anything for us and then we just forgot about them still being around.

Then, from out of nowhere, they announced that they were going to be doing a tour playing Animosity as the three piece that recorded it. We would've liked to have seen that tour since neither one of us has ever gotten to see them, but we missed out. I would be curious to hear how those shows went.

Now, I'm seeing that they have released a new album called IX and I had to satisfy my curiosity. Maybe I've been missing out this whole time? In any case, I'm going to give this new album a chance. They have a video for a song called "Tarqinius Superbus" and my first impression of this song is that
it's not bad. Pretty solid rock song, BUT it's about three minutes too long. The whole jam session that is going on in the song bored me. On the bright side, I'm happy to see that Mike Dean is singing for the band again. In my opinion, he should've always been the vocalist for the band. He just sounds awesome. Then I heard some more songs on this album and got bummed...




Again, I haven't heard anything by them in years, so maybe this nothing new for the band. But the first two songs on here sound weird to me. I mean, he's actually "singing". I thought that it was someone else for a second, but no. Sure enough, it's him. If someone had played me the songs from this album and said, guess who this is? I would never, in a million YEARS, guess that it was C.O.C. Anyway, there are a couple of hard hitting songs on here, but for the most part, it's these bluesy rock songs that are not what I'd expect from the band that brought us songs like "Mad World", "Technocracy" and "Indifferent".

Overall, I am not a fan of this record. There are a couple of songs that I can hang with like "Denmark Vesey", "The Nectar" and "Tarquinius Superbus" but for the most part, it's just not my thing. Maybe it will grow on me? In the mean time, I'm gonna go listen to Eye For An Eye, Six Songs With Mike Singing, Technocracy and Animosity. In that order.

D.C.S.

D.C. Sniper Team takes in a show

This past Sunday, I got a call from Adult Crash saying that he would be able to go to Baltimore to check out Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine. But he had to take care of some parental duties first. I arrive in time to tag along to a t-ball game, get some home made pasta and to give out high fives to the kids. They love their Uncle Malvo. Yes, I tell the kids to call me that. (Adult Crash does not see the humor in that. Probably because his wife would be less than amused.) After all that, away we go!

The show was at the Ottobar with Negative Approach and a local band called War on Women. We arrive in time to check out War on Women and the place is already packed. Not crazy packed, but definitely a lot of people. War on Women aren't bad. Didn't know what to expect from them, but they were pretty good. Solid punk rock-ish kind of band. Never heard of them, but they got a great response from the crowd. Maybe they've been around a while? In any case, I would check them out again.

Next up was Negative Approach and since Adult Crash didn't see them at Damaged City Fest last year, he was curious. I'll have him take over this part of the review. - I know what Malvo said about the show last year and I wanted to see it for myself. First off, the band sounds great! But the guitar player was not facing the crowd at all during their set. This is a pet peeve of mine. I know there was a steel beam in front of him, but he could've stood on either side of it and faced the crowd. It irked me to no end. Then Brannon...well, it wasn't so bad. He seemed to be singing the songs just fine towards the end of their set, but for most of it, he was definitely just growling one word for a whole line in the song. The crowd was a weird one too. I don't know if it's because of the "No stage diving" policy, but the crowd was emotionless during the entire set. Well, except when "Ready To Fight" was played. Don't know how I would feel about that if I was in the band. One song made people move and the rest was met with head bobbing and stares. My opinion, they should give it up.

On a side note, my kids do like Malvo a lot. My old lady sent me a text during the show saying our kids wouldn't stop talking about him after we left. I'm beginning to think that he's giving my kids candy when I'm not looking. Anyway, I'll let Malvo entertain you with his man-crush of Jello Biafra. If you heard a girl shrieking on Sunday night around 11:15pm, it was probably him. Anyway, I will say that they sounded great and I'm looking forward to seeing them again. I guess I'll go ahead and use that download code he gave me a few months ago...

Photo by: Jeff Terranova

Photo by: Jeff Terranova

Photo by: Jeff Terranova

 

I hardly have a man-crush on Jello. But he is awesome in my book. Anyway, they come out and killed it! They sounded awesome. They played a nice mix of stuff from all of their records including a few Dead Kennedy's songs. The crowd gave them lot's of love no matter what they played. But, they definitely got more of a reaction when they played Dead Kennedy's songs. My favorite moment from the show was Jello asking the crowd if they had friends or family members that were into the Tea Party / Fox News. Then asking how they talked to them when it came to particular issues and then launching into "Nazi Punks, Fuck Off!" I almost threw myself from the balcony onto the crowd during that song. Place went bananas! The show went on pretty long with some encores, but I loved every minute of it. Everybody that was there definitely got their money's worth. I think they were on stage for about an hour and a half. Probably the longest show I've seen in a long time. But I'm not complaining.

UPDATE: After we posted this entry, we came across some photos by Jeff Terranova of Jello and the gang from their show in NY. Thank you to Jeff for allowing us to use a few of his photos to make our little blog look a lot cooler.

D.C.S.