Tickle Your Taint Eclectic Music Reviews: Eyehategod- Eyehategod (Housecore Records, 2014)

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Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Eyehategod- Eyehategod (Housecore Records, 2014)

By Dave

Eyehategod is one of those bands that took me a number of years to wrap my head around. The raw angst, lo-fi production values, howling feedback, larynx shredding stories of drug abuse, and southern nihilism just rubbed me the wrong way. Eyehategod seemed to revel in all that I despised in my own struggles with depression, and my personal rejection of drugs and alcohol.

Prior to this release I checked out an online stream of the single “New Orleans Is the New Vietnam.” In my humble opinion the song speaks powerfully of the impact the Hurricane Katrina tragedy had on the local population. This wasn’t just another GG Allen inspired nihilism trip. I heard the desperate punk fury in the vocals and subtle dynamic changes roll through the wall of sludgy riffs. Very human, inventive drumming really ties the track together in a great way.

I guess this is nothing new for the long time EHG fan, but some things just clicked for me in the last year, and this music speaks to me these days. Maybe after having a few too many run-ins with liberal arts students/graduates dressed up like loggers I’ve re-evaluated my background, and embraced a darker side of my working-class background.

In an era when so many metal bands rely on triggered electronic drums, inhumanly precise guitar playing, and song structures taken directly from a Guitar Institute textbook we need bands like Eyehategod to keep the music organic and human. In the realm of stoner metal, Eyehategod has always taken a turn to the dark side of human experience. They have carried on the raw primitive tension of late Black Flag and early Melvins records, which are classics in my book. This is the key element that has really drawn me into this record. Even though the album is surprisingly polished for an EHG release, it still has the rough edges and loose groove that are key to the Eyehategod sound. There are a couple hardcore punk tracks on the record that really break the album up very nicely. While there isn’t much really new happening on this record, it was the right album to come out at the right time for me.

With a couple notable exceptions in mind I’ve been pretty uninspired by the state of modern metal. It seems to have gone on one hand the route of Steve Vai with cookie monster vocals played in double time, while the other side has turned to mind numbing ‘70s arena rock worship. As the Mike Watt song says, “The kids of today should defend themselves against the seventies.” I find the return of Eyehategod to be a refreshing blast of good old ugly snarling American metal.