CORROSION OF CONFORMITY has completed pre-production for its long-awaited follow-up to 2018’s “No Cross No Crown” album.Earlier today (Sunday, January 19),CORROSION OF CONFORMITY bassist Bobby Landgraf took to his Instagram to share a short video from the studio and he included the following caption: “COC Pre Production finished in Gold Rica!!”In the video, Bobby said: “We are here in Gold Rica in Central America. C.O.C., pre-production going on. There’s [guitarist/vocalist] Pepper Keenan. Just caught some tasty waves out there. Warren Riker here on the mix. Here’s your host, Bobby, right here. What’s going on, everybody? [Drummer] Stanton Moore back in the corner… Got [guitarist] Woodroe’s [Woody Weatherman] rig right here. That bass rig right here. Stanton’s fat-ass Gretsch right here. And Pepper Keenan’s corner right here. Tones are kickin’, the record’s slamming. We’re really proud of what we did. It’s been a hell of a week, y’all. Boom.”Last October, CORROSION OF CONFORMITY recruited onetime DOWN guitarist and current PANTERA bass tech Landgraf to play bass for the band on the 2024 edition of the Headbangers Boat cruise.In September 2024, CORROSION OF CONFORMITY’s founding bassist Mike Dean announced his departure from the band.Dean revealed his decision to leave CORROSION OF CONFORMITY in a statement posted on social media. He wrote: “Recently I made a decision to step away from CORROSION OF CONFORMITY, a band started 40-odd years ago by Reed Mullin, Woody Weatherman, and myself.”I’m extremely proud of everything we’ve done together, and look forward to hearing more from the band going forward.”When I rejoined COC for the finishing touches of the ‘Deliverance’ album, I moved back to Raleigh, NC for an all-in creative campaign, but time, distance and side projects and life in general has changed all of that.”Ever since Reed drifted away from the band and then passed away, it’s been difficult for me to collaborate on new material with bandmates who live hundreds of miles away.”I look forward to putting together a new Raleigh-based outlet to create new music with more alacrity and with more of an emphasis on my own ideas than in recent times. Also, I look forward to continuing to record and produce other artists.”All the best to Woodroe, Pepper, and COC crew, and most importantly, many big thanks to the fans of all iterations of the band, who have made this real for all of these years. Salute!”The remaining members of CORROSION OF CONFORMITY — Keenan and Weatherman — added in a separate statement: “We, Woodroe and Pepper, are in full support of Dean’s future endeavors and wish him all the best in the quest. Thankful for the music made and (R)evolutionary paths created. That being said, this book of CORROSION is not finished, nor will the train stop.”The opportunity to play music and create is something that we don’t take lightly, and we will not waver. New COC recording is well underway and will be released in 2025.”Much love and respect to all the free thinkin’ beer drinkin’ friends and fans worldwide, looking to making more. Without you, we are just growing deaf in a garage.”Two years ago, CORROSION OF CONFORMITY confirmed the return of Moore for its upcoming album.Mullin died in January 2020 at the age of 53. The drummer, who co-founded CORROSION OF CONFORMITY in 1982 as a hardcore punk act alongside Weatherman and Dean, had missed a number of shows in the preceding four years due to a variety of health issues, including an alcohol-related seizure he suffered back in June 2016.In 2014, after nearly a straight decade traversing the globe as a guitarist with New Orleans supergroup DOWN, Pepper reconnected with the core CORROSION OF CONFORMITY trio of Weatherman, Dean and Mullin to hit the road hard. “Reed called me and mentioned maybe playing a couple shows,” Keenan recalled back in 2017. “I said, ‘Let’s just go to Europe and see if it works.’ So we went to Europe and then ended up going back four times in one year… We toured for a year and then started tracking.”CORROSION OF CONFORMITY recorded “No Cross No Crown” in about forty days over the course of a year at a North Carolina studio with longtime producer John Custer.