Review
Eyehategod
Eyehategod

With their first full-length album in 14 years (save for an EP of sorts in 2005 and a 7" in 2012), it's almost one's gut instinct to remark that Eyehategod haven't missed a beat in all that time and sound as lethal now as they did on 2000's Confederacy of Ruined Lives. However, to gloss over those nearly 15 years of time also kind of misses that point. 14 years is a long time. That's 14 years of doing other things. It's 14 years of new experiences. It's 14 years of pain, which the band felt this past December when drummer Joey LaCaze passed away suddenly. And before that, there was Mike 'IX' Williams' incarceration. Not to mention when Hurricane Katrina which touched down in the band's hometown New Orleans. Again, 14 years is a long time. 

Having those sorts of years on your meter adds something to a band. A wisdom that can't otherwise be achieved. It's an intangible that few other bands can touch. It's what makes every single riff on the new self-titled connect like a lightening bolt and feel as cathartic as when Godzilla lets loose with his fire blast. 

At 11 tracks and roughly 43 minutes, Eyehategod , which was released on Phil Anselmo's Housecore Records, is an incredibly economical record lengthwise and one that reads as a single entity for the most part aside from album opener "Agitation! Propaganda!" whose d-beat inflected charge isn't bad by any stretch of the imagination but does stick out as a bit of an outlier when compared to the rest of the album. A lot of that feeling of cohesiveness has to do with just how tremendous the meat of the album is. For long stretches of the album, you could throw a knife blindfolded and hit something serious. 

"Agitation! Propaganda!" is a swift punch to start a record off with. "Trying to Crack the Hard Dollar" follows and lumbering flanked with by a few bluesy riffs. The tracks closes with a nice breakdown in the last ten seconds that lets Gary Mader's bass step out into the spotlight for a moment. 

The riffs are heavy on "Trying to Crack the Hard Dollar" but really the band is digging its heels in for the massive blow that about to deliver over the remainder of the album. Mining from a canvas equally seeped in sludge and swampy vibes, the riffs from Jimmy Bower and Brian Patton spool out into the open air filling the room. It'd be easy to get drunk off the riffs laid out by the band but that undersells the pounding, acrobatic drumming of Joey LaCaze. 

"Parish Motel Sickness" sounds like an immediate classic for the band. Sinewy, meat cleaver riffs loom mightily while LaCaze puts on a clinic behind the kit. Vocalist Mike IX Williams' gripping vocals reign in it all in, especially on the back half of the track when the sludge 'n fuzz riffage sounds as if it's about to spill over from whatever cauldron is being conjured up from. The lines "Sometimes I'm stuck together, Sometimes I'm so unglued" keeps things tethered together. 

On "Nobody Told Me", the pained vocals sound like they come from things on a tapeworm's side of things. Eeking out, but gathering strength inside its host. The guitars have a real bounce and feel to them, the sort of thing that you'd expect from a band of musicians from New Orleans. Only these sounds are cloaked in things far sinister. "Worthless Rescue" follows and conjures up even more heady blues-tinged riffs. 

"Framed to the Wall" has a gallop to it while drums crash behind. In the last minute or so, the band once again settles into a groove and carries the song out on the shoulders of the earth-moving riffage. 

It might have something to do with how the line "Staggering backwards" is delivered, but "Robitussin and Rejection" has a homespun feel to it where the listener can just about feel the circle pit forming around them. The track just about bleeds into "Flags and Cities Bound" while the latter also includes a vivid spoken word moment from Williams. "Medicine Noose" is a lumbering, heavy number; one that seems destined to be part of the band's live set for years to come. Album closer "The Age of Boot Camp" is a song that has actually been a part of the band's canon for years; first appearing on a split with Soilent Green in 2002. Re-recorded here, it's a testament to the band that they'd keep a song around for over a decade, still tinkering with it along the way for maximum devastation. 

Mixed by revered noise alchemist Sanford Parker, Eyehategod has a crack balance between guitar and drum sounds. It toes the chalked line while still allowing Williams' words to breathe. It's the sort of structured anarchy that only an experienced band can make. The sort of thing that only an album 14 years in the making can achieve.