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Class 6(66)

Eyehategod: Dopesick

07/04/11  ||  Daemonomania

Introduction

Eyehategod/Uhategod/Weallhategod, let’s go listen to Gorod!

Please, please, sit down – no need to stand and applaud and cheer so loudly. Please, you embarrass me with your endless praise. Take your seats. Oh, it’s sooooo overwhelming.

So Daemo’s back in the Class again, and happy to bring you a landmark in the great morass that is sludge. “Dopesick” finds the band tightening up their sound, getting a production that is quite fitting, and laying into the metal-loving masses with a bile-soaked attack on all that is decent and pure. Most would agree that this is EHG’s best. I am mo(i)st.

Songwriting

7.5. Few albums can make you want to both light a spliff before taking an airboat tour of the swamps AND unplug the phone whilst drawing the shades to pick at some bedsores – SIMULTANEOUSLY. To be honest sitting down and listening to “Dopesick” from front to back is a little daunting, since there are big chunks of pure FUCK YOU squealing feedback. But tracks like “Ruptured heart…”, “Lack of…”, and “Peace thru war…” make it all worthwhile. Sabbath grooves meets punk rock meets unimaginable pain. Drug gumbo is born. You know a disc which opens and closes with a breaking bottle is gonna be rough but rewarding.

Honestly though, some of the uninterrupted ear piercing is cruel. No more, I surrender!

Production

9. This production – full of grit but still clear enough to hear the details, is perfect for ze God. Billy Anderson, producer of about two billion albums, did a great job and with Pepper assisting they certainly kicked EHG up a notch. BAM.

Also, I’d highly recommend giving a read to the part of the Wiki article describing how the studio owner where “Popedick” was recorded reacted to a bit of broken bottle and blood graffiti – what a wuss.

Guitars

7.5. I will continue to say teh grooves art awesome and teh feedback is hurtful. The riffs give this album its character without a doubt. There’s riffs from when Ozzy was cool, riffs from when more members of Lynyrd Skynyrd were alive, riffs from when punk and hardcore meant the same thing, etc. Then there are the massive walls of suffering. Like being on various substances. The highs, the lows, and little in between.

Vocals

8.5. A howl of desperation fed through distortion. If there is one MAJOR reason for normal people not enjoying this music, it’s gotta be Mike’s anguished shouts. Praise Jeebus none of us are normal. I deeply dig the animalistic rage on display, but could easily see how even those used to black mvtvl screams or death metal growls could walk away perplexed.

Bass

8.5. Dirty, rumbling bass dominates. No wait, feedback dominates. But that bass works hard nonetheless. How could you have a head-nodding metallic bayou section without some serious brown notes? The bass is the good cop – always smiling and friendly and trying to sympathize with you. The guitars are the sneaky cop – one minute they’re your friend and the next you’ve got rectal toilet plunger splinters forever.

Drums

8.5. LaCaze makes me LaCrazed! Wow, I am on a fucken roll today. Slap some cheddar cheese, lettuce, banana peppers, and mayo on me and watch as Subway Bullshit Sandwich Shoppes Inc. go out of business across the planet. On a more serious note Not So Fat Joe is one hell of a great drummer for the music at hand. You can tell the dude listened to plenty of old hardcore and of course some vintage Black Sabbath. He then churned out the best possible mix of said influences.

Lyrics

7. Hmmm. From what I can understand ole Mike doesn’t sound too happy at the time, though in my interview he comes across as a pretty upbeat guy. The lyrics are not easy to find. But knowing the EHG modus operandi I would guess they deal in an oblique way with themes such as addiction, pain, loss, frustration, New Orleans, and an impassioned defense of Lamarck’s theory of evolution.

Cover

7/8. What do you like better – someone getting eye surgery or a woman tied up with rope? The answer to this question will help us all to define you as a person. If you’ve already got “Dopesick”, it will also tell us if you got the U.S. or the international version, as we American prudes found the bound lady to be “too extreme”. Like prime-time television, blood and guts are A-Ok but the minute we see a boob the world might explode.

Logo

6. The band’s name in a box. Big bold capital letters. Since they’ve been running with it so long I guess you can’t change it, but certainly nothing to write a letter (stained in needlejuice and excreta) home about.

Booklet

7.5. Filled with the usual “stream of consciousness” style collage of disturbing images, scrawls that may or may not be the lyrics, and general eyehategoddery. Quality.

Overall and ending rant

If you’re interested in checking out Southern-style sludge, “Dopesick” is the way to go. Never before and maybe never again would the band mix the good cheer of drunken groove with the snarling, semi-psychotic air of professional heroin addiction so well. Cheers to EHG for releasing a monument of their own particular style. Pity they’d only churn out one proper album afterward. Here’s hoping Iron Mike IX and the gang decide to get together and grace us with their Dixie whiskey-laden presences soon. I’ll tie my arm off in readiness.

8

  • Information
  • Released: 1996
  • Label: Century Media
  • Website: Eyehategod MySpace
  • Band
  • Michael Williams: vocals
  • Brian Patton: guitars
  • Jimmy Bower: guitars
  • Vince LeBlanc: bass
  • Joe LaCaze: drums
  • Tracklist
  • 01. My Name Is God (I Hate You)
  • 02. Dogs Holy Life
  • 03. Masters Of Legalized Confusion
  • 04. Dixie Whiskey
  • 05. Ruptured Heart Theory
  • 06. Non Conductive Negative Reasoning
  • 07. Lack Of All Most Everything
  • 08. Zero Nowhere
  • 09. Methamphetamine
  • 10. Peace Thru War (Thru Peace And War)
  • 11. Broken Down But Not Locked Up
  • 12. Anxiety Hangover

Class 6(66) -reviews

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