Second release of COC after a while on hiatus whilst Pepper Keenan is living it up with DOWN… I ‘ve been listening several times to this album and unfortunately I cannot get myself to really appreciate it.. Production wise it’s obvious that together with Pepper also a decent recording budget went… (it’s really a shame how Reed Mullin’s drums are sounding like a someone hitting cardboard boxes and sheetmetal whatevers instead of his well known hammering …. ). One can say that the Pepperless releases of the 80 hardcore COC version also didn’t have a killer production and I would have to say that that’s correct but… they had killer HC bombs on it. IX is lacking this. Were as the self titled release from 2012 clearly opted for sort of return to the crossover days, it seems that on IX the band try mostly to continue where they left off in 2005 with “in the arms of god”. Sadly it appears the creativity is not there right now to match the classics all of us hold so dear (Blind, Deliverance, America’s volume dealer, Animosity…. to name a few )… A PITTY!!!