Video Premiere: CORROSION OF CONFORMITY's 'The Luddite'

January 12, 2018

"The Luddite", the new video from CORROSION OF CONFORMITY, can be seen below. The song is taken from the band's first studio recording with vocalist/guitarist Pepper Keenan in over a decade, "No Cross No Crown", which is being released today (Friday, January 12) via Nuclear Blast Entertainment.

In 2014, after nearly a straight decade traversing the globe as a guitarist with New Orleans supergroup DOWN, Pepper Keenan reconnected with the core CORROSION OF CONFORMITY trio of Woody Weatherman, Mike Dean and Reed Mullin to hit the road hard. "Reed called me and mentioned maybe playing a couple shows," Keenan recalls. "I said, 'Let's just go to Europe and see if it works.' So we went to Europe and then ended up going back four times in one year... We toured for a year and then started tracking about ten or eleven months ago."

Recording in North Carolina with longtime producer John Custer, CORROSION OF CONFORMITY cut "No Cross No Crown" in about forty days over the course of a year. "We took our time and didn't put any pressure on ourselves," Keenan says. "I'd go up from New Orleans and we'd do four or five days at a time, just hacking away at it. It was fun because we did it like a demo, but in a studio. We were writing and putting it on tape at the same time. We took what parts we thought were great from the old days and weren't scared to go backwards. It kinda wrote itself that way."

Some of these new jams sound like could've easily been on "Wiseblood" or "Deliverance", two of CORROSION OF CONFORMITY's most revered records. On "No Cross No Crown", beefy Southern stompers like "The Luddite", "Little Man" and "Forgive Me" are interspersed with melancholy guitar interludes like "No Cross", "Matre's Diem" and "Sacred Isolation" — just like SABBATH used to do in the '70s. "We started doing that on 'Deliverance'," Keenan points out. "My theory on that is that if you're trying to make a record flow, you need to break it up a little. When you need a breather, write an interlude. I like writing those mellow pieces just to space things out and make the next thing come in heavier."

The album's iconic title comes from a recent tour stop in England. "We were playing this old church from like the 1500s that had been turned into a performing arts center," Keenan recalls. "The dressing room had stained glass windows and one of them showed this poor fella being persecuted. Underneath it said, 'no cross no crown.' So I just took that idea. We're not trying to be on a soapbox, but we used it as a catalyst to write songs around."

Which is to say that "No Cross No Crown" has a lot less to do with politics or religion than its title implies. "I think everyone needs to get away from that mindset in general," Keenan offers. "It just seems to be a mess out there nowadays. We need to get back to being humans and taking care of each other and simple things like that. For us, the terminology 'no cross no crown' is a theme. It's mentioned in like three songs throughout the album. We just weaved it through as we went."

"No Cross No Crown" stands as irrefutable proof of CORROSION OF CONFORMITY's ability to overcome. "CORROSION OF CONFORMITY and the prior records I've done with them didn't just go away," Keenan observes. "It's an honor to be back out there and have an opportunity to do it again in a real way and not some washed-up reunion thing. Even before we wrote the record, we were out there for a year seeing there was a demand for it and that there was a void that we could fill. That's been CORROSION OF CONFORMITY's deal from day one. We're not chasing anybody around. We're not gonna worry about what the new trends are. CORROSION OF CONFORMITY is CORROSION OF CONFORMITY."

"No Cross No Crown" track listing:

01. Novus Deus
02. The Luddite
03. Cast The First Stone
04. No Cross
05. Wolf Named Crow
06. Little Man
07. Matre's Diem
08. Forgive Me
09. Nothing Left To Say
10. Sacred Isolation
11. Old Disaster
12. E.L.M.
13. No Cross No Crown
14. A Quest To Believe (A Call To The Void)
15. Son And Daughter

In advance of the release of "No Cross No Crown", CORROSION OF CONFORMITY has join edBLACK LABEL SOCIETY for a mammoth North American live takeover. The tour kicked off December 27 in Denver, Colorado and will wind its way through nearly four dozen cities, the journey coming to a close February 27. Additional support is being provided by EYEHATEGOD and RED FANG on select shows.

Photo credit: Dean Karr

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).