Review Summary: Animosity shows a Corrosion of Conformity as a band progressing with and refining their sound, though the raw elements taken from their first album are still evident.
Animosity, Corrosion of Conformity's second album, is a big step up from
Eye for a eye in almost every aspect. Excluding the obvious musical direction, what is different with
Animosity is a change in vocalists (Mike Dean takes up vocals as well as playing his usual instrument this time round), a slightly cleaner production and an unusually shorter total time for the album. There are only ten tracks here, two of which exceed the four-minute mark, the rest running at around three minutes or less. That said, since the album's release almost three decades ago, many bands have cited it as a great influence on their sound, including Metallica, Mr. Bungle and Agoraphobic Nosebleed.
You can see the progression of the band's sound by comparing CoC's first two albums, although the musical direction and ambition hadn't changed by a great deal. It had, after all, only been a year between the release of
Eye for an eye and
Animosity. So,
Animosity, from the very start is much heavier, more consistent and most definitely more serious than its predecessor. Opener “Loss for words”, which admittedly still has a very hardcore punk-esque attitude, has a thrash metal mentality throughout, offering a multitude of blistering solos, frantic vocals and a variation of different speeds to make the sound that bit more interesting. The shorter tracks such as “Consumed” and “Positive outlook” (the latter having already been used on the band's first album) also utilize a solid, tight rhythm section which both now have more in common with the likes of early Slayer or Anvil than Dead Kennedys. The better written and considerably disturbing “Holier” makes for a very unforgettable and uniquely written song, particularly because of the way in which vocals are twisted to sound almost like a demon screaming through the wall of music, and the very catchy closing title track progresses to a powerful albeit still generally mid-paced groove thrash attack, something that would be continued and refined on the band's next album,
Blind.
Animosity isn't perfect, even if it is only 26 minutes long. There aren't any filler tracks here of course, but there are parts where a song will perhaps lose its direction because of inconsistent instrumental performances or a generally tiresome affair. “Mad world”, despite its obviously catchy chorus (“It's a mad mad mad mad maaad world!”), suffers slightly from a lackluster mid-section, where the only solos sound as if they've been overused too many times. There are also a couple of other shorter tracks which suffer in the same way, including “Kiss of death” and “Hungry child”, both of which also sound as if they need to be longer than they actually are and as a result prove to be incomplete.
Animosity is thus a vast improvement on the band's debut record, though at this point CoC hadn't really decided upon a concrete sound, and wouldn't until the release of
Blind six years later. That said, the band's second album obviously holds some great influence over many bands today, where bands such as Mr. Bungle have been known to cover “Loss for words” during their tours and Metallica themselves admit they are long-time fans. It's an album that does deserve it's place in your collection, though if you listen to it after the likes of
Deliverance, it will come across as weak.
