At Length Did Cross An Albatross

At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name

I do love me a slice of old Sam Tay C and his ‘Rime syndicate. The plot of which involves the titular old salt pushed far beyond the reaches of civilization and normality, the corrosion of conformity to reason and the natural world leads him to desperately crave some deliverance from all that besets him.

If only an introduction like this could move seamlessly to an LP in the 1537.

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Corrosion Of Conformity Deliverance. Wow. I came very late indeed to this particular party, having nailed C.O.C as a hardcore punk act I was absolutely blown away by the track ‘Albatross’ when I encountered it on Metallica’s Guitar Hero game*. Here was something anthemic, new and timeless somehow, hearing it was much more akin to rediscovering something you had forgotten, than hearing something novel.

Prices being what they were I was not able to pick up a copy of Deliverance on the cheap until the 2022 Century Media re-release. I have to say they did a brilliant job of it, liner notes giving an aural history of the LPs creation**, nice chunky vinyl with a great pressing and a quartet of worthwhile bonus tracks tucked out of sight on Side D of the double LP. Other reissue companies take note, this is the gold standard.

There is music on Deliverance too.

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I love the choppy swooping ‘Heaven’s Not Overflowing’ its a shot of adrenalin and somehow always puts me in mind of being chased along a dirt road by a badass crew in a pickup truck; maybe that’s just me. The guitar sounds are solid southern, but the staccato assemblage of the riff is pure ’94, until they break out a great wailing solo straight out of Jacksonville ’74.

Then we’re into ‘Albatross’, which is exactly why we are here. The guitar tone is pure Fu Manchu but then they take it somewhere else with Pepper Keenan’s great yearning vocals. He really does mean it man. When the guitar cuts in it’s a tangible, physical thing blowing right out of the speakers at you. One of my very favourite tracks from that decade, I’ll swear my jeans grew patches and got bootcut spontaneously after listening to it 9 times on repeat.

Deliverance maintains the standard with ‘Clean My Wounds’ which somehow grafts Thin Lizzy onto something punky. Trust me those twin guitars and vocal phrasing is pure Bad Reputation. Mrs 1537 loves this song far more than she will ever love me, I can live with that.

There are three instrumental interludes on Deliverance, all three manage to be both utterly inconsequential and utterly essential somehow. They are clean, unhurried and classy, ‘Mano De Mono’ even goes a bit Brian May. Each being a palette cleanser for what follows, a bit of Shakespearian comic relief.

Relief being in short supply on ‘Broken Man’, a bitchingly heavy number built for grunge guys and gals to mosh to and the punkiest thing on Deliverance proper. Even better is ‘Señor Limpio’ which has a detached ZZ Top air about it, tied to a mean lyric about a substance abuser and some genius guitaring courtesy of Keenan and Woody Weatherman.

I’ll spare you a full track-by-track but I love the epic striving of ‘Seven Days’ which is pure classic rock, the assertive headache-y strut of ‘My Grain’ and the final left-right combo of ‘Shelter’ a wistful beast and ‘Pearls Before Swine’ a slow-burn menacing track with a touch of Alice In Chains harmony about it.

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The bonus tracks on my copy of Deliverance really do add to it, which is pretty unusual. The band offer up a great reading of Black Sabbath’s ‘Lord Of This World’ an okay noisy track called ‘Big Problems’ and a scorching loud and punky cut called ‘Fuel (Jam-Box Tape)’, which I really wished was longer.

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Deliverance is a hell of an achievement, a band really finding a radically new sound for themselves and cutting a classic-sounding rock LP which has enough of their old sound within it to keep it fresh.

I haven’t mentioned the rhythm section of Mike Dean and Reed Mullin at all and I should, they are immense; Mullin’s drumming in particular. They are thunderously loud whilst still being supple and subtle enough to allow everything to swing like it should^.

Weirdly for me I have yet to explore anything Corrosion Of Conformity did after Deliverance, I will one day but for no this corrosion is all I need.

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It has absolutely no relevance to the platter in hand but let us finish with some more Sam Tay C, a verse that I often quote to myself, smugly it should be admitted, after some minor calamity or other^^.

He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn

1222 Down.

*the Mercyful Fate medley put me into finger hospital for a month when unwisely attempted on full difficulty level. True story.

**a tortured, risky genesis full of guitar layering and members being shed.

^specifically, in the manner of Godzilla’s nut sack.

^^like not having stamps, running out of coffee in the morning, all manner of day job stuff, you know the score.