Each Sunday, The Hard Times travels back and reviews a notable album from the past. This week we’re taking a look at Corrosion of Conformity’s “Blind,” the 1991 album that solidified the crossover thrash pioneers as a full-on metal act.

It was also the year that solidified my parents’ rocky relationship. I wasn’t alive at the time but both my folks love telling me about how I owe my existence to this band. They were students at Harvard where they had met and started dating. A few months into the relationship things were starting to get stale and they were on the verge of breaking up. That was until my “uncle” Steve gave my dad about an ounce of mushrooms and a couple tickets to see C.O.C. at The Channel in Boston.

Neither of my parents had ever tried drugs before, nor were they the biggest rock fans but they were willing to try something new together if it might save their relationship. A lot of the story is kind of chaotic because they later learned that they had each taken about a half ounce of the magic fungi and don’t remember too much clearly. I guess they panic ate the whole thing after witnessing someone else in line in front of them get their drugs confiscated.

They say about halfway through the opening band they noticed their bodies starting to get warm and before they knew it they were experiencing an uncontrollable giggle fit due to the fact that everybody in the room had “swirly face.” Neither of them was too sure how to handle it so by the time the first band had ended and the headliners were getting set up, they had separated and lost each other. My mom says she searched for him but my uncle Steve says he saw her laying behind the merch table making snow angels on top of the band’s shirts.

That’s when security escorted her out of the building and she ran into my dad who was out front chain smoking cigarettes with a complete stranger. This is when they locked eyes for the first time during their trip and both swear that at that moment they saw their entire future flash before their eyes. My father flicked his cigarette and ran toward my mother and they made love right there on the street in front of the venue where a horrified crowd of at least twenty-five people was in full view.

They were both arrested that night for public lewdness. My dad caught an extra charge for assault because that cigarette he flicked ended up going in that stranger’s eye, leaving him permanently blind. All in all, without this record coming out and my parents taking an inhuman amount of psilocybin before trying to go see the band play, I wouldn’t be here writing a review for tor them.

SCORE: Five out of five swirly faces.

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