Music to listen to when eating Burger Rings

Maybe it's because I'm poor and you can buy two packets for two dollars at the local supermarket, but lately my snack of choice has been Burger Rings, the delicious o-shaped chip that tastes, by no stretch of the imagination, anything like a hamburger. Something about this snack sends me on a shame spiral of nostalgia to the 90s. So when I went to the cupboard to get my hit of fat and cholesterol, my mind wandered to Wiseblood, a quintessential embodiment of the 1990s alt rock scene.

From their salad days as a punks from North Carolina in the 80s, Corrosion of Conformity rode the grunge metal wave to major label success after vocalist/guitarist Pepper Keenan injected some New Orleans' groove on the Blind album. Though the move saw them labelled henious sell-outs by some, C.O.C.'s new direction saw critical and commercial success on the Deliverance album. Their next effort, Wiseblood, saw the band combine the anger of Pantera, the melancholy of Alice in Chains, the groove of Jane's Addiction and the stadium friendly riffs of post-Justice Metallica (James Hetfield even has a guest vocals spot on 'Man or Ash') to create a rock and roll riff-monster that could have only been conceived in the 1990s.

A product of apathy, bong hits and laughably corny artwork, Wiseblood is C.O.C. using every trick in the book to make an album saturated with funky hooks, groovy riffs and killer beats. Tracks like 'The Door' and 'Long Whip/Big America' are driven by groovy riffs, loose basslines and badly modulated vocals. 'Goodbye Window' and 'The Snake has No Head' are simple exercises in the post-Nirvana loud/soft dynamic. Hell, in the video for Grammy nominated cut 'Drowning in a Daydream', between all the shitty visual effects and blurry shots of gas masks, Pepper even manages to LOOK like a cross between Kurt Cobain and Jared Leto. 'Man or Ash' sees lead guitarist Woody Weatherman use spicy licks to over-power Keenan's molases-thick rhythms. As the album draws to a close, contemplative closers 'Redemption City' and instrumental 'Bottom Feeder (El Que Come Abajo)' show the band's sensitive side and round out an album, that 13 years on, still proves that an album can be an obvious amalgam but still undeniably rule. Just like no one can hold it against Burger Rings that they taste nothing like their namesake. Because for Burger Rings, and C.O.C., the delicious finished product has always been too good to scrutinise the ingredients.