America's Volume Dealer returns the band to the format of Deliverance in mixing aggressive tunes with acoustic filled and southern tinged numbers. COC really let their southern rock influence shine on this album. It opens with two excellent rocking numbers. The rest of the album varies between songs similar in feel, acoustic based tunes and more laid�back, jammy numbers. While many fans of COC's previous two albums may find this album not heavy enough, I enjoy every song on this album and think this is COC's best effort to date.

Never a band to do anything the carbon-copy way, Corrosion of Conformity has once again boggled the proverbial mind with the "hydro-phonic" sound that rocks, grooves, and makes you want to smash things (depending on which song you may be listening to at the time). I find it impossible to believe that any longtime Corrosion of Conformity fan will dislike America's Volume Dealer. By virtue of being a "longtime" fan, you must have grown through a few sound changes along the way, and therefore nothing here will throw you at this point in the game. Fans of Pepper's impassioned raspy vocals will be psyched, as well as anyone who loves the band's unique southern-soul-rock sound of recent years. As for the uninitiated, come on, join the fun - you'll be hooked by the end of the first chorus of the first song, "Over Me".

The downtuned fuzz-thrashing of 1991's Sabbath/stoner-doom epic, Blind still subtly nestled underneath, but a more open Allman Brothers worship has surfaced, signaling the likely direction of the next C.O.C. evolution. Perhaps closer to Lynyrd Skynyrd than Sabbath at times, America's Volume Dealer still rocks hard. This is quality hard rock bordering on metal, with well-written songs and Pepper Keenan's distinctively cool voice. Unless you just hate anything without blastbeats, you'll find this a good record to play when you're looking for loud nasty hard rock.