“You still listen to this stuff?” beamed my buddy as I tossed Corrosion Of Conformity’s latest concert video into the old DVD player. “They’re just second-rate Metallica, man!”
After a stern tongue-wagging about how COC were around just as long as Alternica, playing the same style that their San Francisco brethren copped for their multi-mega unit shifting Black album, I sat back to watch the carnage.
Or lack of. Live Volume—The Movie, a collection of songs from the band’s latest opus America’s Volume Dealer, is really bright and shiny. The band look great wanking away up there, there’s lots of tricky angles, lights and swooping cameras over the crowd. Everything a COC concert shouldn’t be.
Call me a purist, call me a tosser, it’s just not…interesting. When I think of the First Wave of American Heavy Metal, I want dirt. I want stagediving. Gore. Sweaty hair whipping around at break-neck speed and a million fuck-ups glaring through but the pit is so intense no one gives a fuck. I want D.R.I.’s Live at the Ritz. I’m getting Farmclub.com.
Impartially, this DVD is rather stunning. Its clarity and artistic direction are spotless, and there are plenty of the expected bonuses most DVDs flaunt. Only now all “bonus material” means is instead of cleverly editing personal footage in with the concert, DVD creators can now simply stick the show together and throw up another “selection” on the menu screen. In other words, what used to be a regular feature of any VHS tape is now repackaged as if you’re getting something for nothing. But I digress. This has little to do with COC.
Basically, Live Volume—The Movie is a reward for a band that has slagged it out long and hard over the past 20 years. They get the big budget flick that will most certainly boost waning egos. But unless you were at that show and want sentimental value, diehards will most likely find little interesting about it. Songs are played almost note-perfect to the record, and audience participation is minimal. In the end, Live Volume—The Movie winds up spending more time on the shelf collecting dust than offering a supreme COC fix.
