The cover of
Leadfoot's 1998 debut,
Bring It On, is emblazoned with a large sticker pointing out, and presumably boasting, that the band features former members of
Corrosion of Conformity. While this sort of cross-marketing was probably intended to lure
COC fans into buying this record, in terms of generating an instant fan base the plan may ultimate backfire, as standing the two groups side by side just makes it that much more obvious that
COC knew exactly what it was doing by letting these members go. The ex-
COC members being addressed are bassist Phil Swisher and vocalist Karl Agell. Having one of the shorter runs in
COC's revolving cast, Agell was the group's frontman for the release of 1991's seminal
Blind. While
Blind heralded
COC's departure from full-on metal to something a bit more palatable, that palatability was due less to Agell's forgettable operatics and more to the newly added guitar work of Pepper Keenan. (Keenan's lone, ruggedly melodic, vocal turn on
Blind, the rabble-rousing "Vote With a Bullet," was unquestionably the album's standout track, clearing the path for his subsequent jump to frontman following Agell's parting.) Rather than directly drawing on the Southern-metal-hardcore sound
Corrosion of Conformity essentially invented in the 1980s,
Leadfoot slows things down and focuses more on the Southern rawk aspect of things. While on paper this may sound a lot like the path
Corrosion of Conformity itself successfully traveled on releases like
Deliverance or
Wiseblood, in reality
Leadfoot lacks the cohesiveness, power, and savvy of
COC and isn't able to pull it off. Whereas
Corrosion of Conformity also prides itself on having strong political convictions,
Leadfoot's social activism doesn't seem to stretch beyond the juvenile statement conveyed by the presence of "420" and an American flag on the album cover.
Bring It On's lyrics linger around a similarly pseudo-meaningful void, with half-hearted (and half-witted) attempts at profundity like "Are you a lodger wax Masonic/Or a man from outer space?/I got a bullet that's subsonic/With a bull's-eye that's your face." Yawn. While it may seem unfair to compare
Leadfoot so heavily to
Corrosion, ultimately if it weren't for the connection between the two bands, there would be no reason to ponder
Leadfoot's mediocre Southern metal at all. ~ Karen E. Graves