Eyehategod’s twenty-odd-year history is so rich, dark, and squalid that it’s nearly impossible to ignore when discussing the band’s formidable musical output. Alongside Crowbar and Down (both of whom are also riding high on recent releases), they are the quintessential Southern sludge band, and were instrumental in articulating and perfecting that bleak, swaggering metal-meets-punk sound that frontman Mike Williams still calls “heavy blues”. While it’s easy to wax romantic over what Eyehategod friend and occasional collaborator Phil Anselmo once dismissively referred to as “the Southern slow jam thing, whiskey that, rebel this,” Eyehategod are so much more than their backstory. (And, anyway, Mike prefers vodka.) The New Orleans institution refuses to either take themselves too seriously or be made victims of their own mythology. They’re just here to play, and if you have a problem with that, well, they’re tougher than they look, and they already look pretty damn tough.
In the many years since they started the band and released 1989’s Garden Dwarf Woman Driver demo, Eyehategod’s core members have collectively survived the worst luck imaginable. They’ve been battered by hurricane winds, crippling addiction, jail time, depression, and ultimately, death; they've welcomed new drummer Aaron Hill into the fold following the untimely passing of original sticksman Joey LaCaze in 2013. LaCaze’s signature drumming style married swaggering looseness with a powerful physicality, and his presence is felt all over the band’s new self-titled album. It’s a fitting epitaph for such a larger-than-life talent, and an excellent sign for the future.
The release of Eyehategod has been a long time coming: the band took their sweet time dithering over album titles and labels, and the recording process was waylaid by fitful stops and starts, as it began at legendary Dopesick producer Billy Anderson’s studio, paused, and was resumed at Anselmo’s home studio alongside Down producer Steve Berrigan. Anselmo’s Housecore label signed on to the release resulting album, which marks the now-quartet’s first full-length studio recording since 2000’s Confederacy of Ruined Lives. The smoke's since cleared, and the resulting eleven-song testament is well worth the wait.
“Agitation! Propaganda!” is a full-bore rager that sounds more like Williams’ hardcore punk side project Arson Anthem than anything else. Eyehategod has always written fast songs, but they’ve never opened an album like this before; typically, they've preferred to catch their listeners off-guard with a mid-album burst like Dopesick's “Methamphetamine”, or kick things off with a bait-and-switch a la “Blank” on Take As Needed For Pain. For a few nerve-wracking moments, you’re left wondering whether Eyehategod have burrowed way back down to their punk roots and abandoned the heavy altogether, but halfway through the song those dirty Delta blues riffs force their way back in, and from then on, it’s business as usual.
Eyehategod resembles the band's most classic work through and through, from the abject aural misery on “Robitussin and Rejection” to the feedback-heavy “Flags and Cities Bound”, the latter of which sees Williams dip into one of his wild-eyed spoken word rants. Jimmy Bower and Brian Patton are in fine form as they pass leaden blues riffs back and forth, teasing out grooves and smashing into teeth-out blasts of intensity when the mood strikes. They have some fun, too; “Worthless Rescue” catches them smuggling in a straight-up Southern rock riff under loads of distortion, and the “Framed to the Wall” gives them another chance to wrestle with sweaty punk riffs before stalling back down into syrupy sludge. Bassist Gary Mader’s got the most heavy lifting to do across the board, matching LaCaze’s apocalyptic beats and anchoring the whole unsteady mess with dependably solid skill while Williams throttles both the mic and his own beleaguered vocal chords with a perverse alacrity. Acidic and unpredictable, you’d never guess just how many times Williams’ voice has been put through the ringer. As always with Eyehategod, those scars are internal.
The band has been playing several of these songs live for years, and there’s a reason “Medicine Noose” and “Nobody Told Me” have become set staples. The manic-depressive “Medicine Noose” is a lumbering behemoth of a song with a thick, patient central riff that promises big and delivers bigger, and the perfectly-executed “Nobody Told Me” is the best song they’ve written in years, with a perfect riff that's exactly what fans would ask for if Williams, Bower, and the fellas pulled them into the practice space for input. “The Age of Bootcamp” has William wailing like a sick animal atop a familiar punishing groove that, more than anything else, signals that Eyehategod is back, and they aren’t going anywhere.
You’ve got to admire the sheer force of will that has brought Eyehategod to this point. After fourteen years, they’ve come out swinging, armed with yet another of their often-renewed leases on life and still spoiling for a fight. That Eyehategod exists at all is a miracle in and of itself, but the fact that it is so damn great is simply extraordinary.
