Review written by guest writer!
DRAGGED INTO SUNLIGHT
Eyehategod have delivered high quality album after e.p. since 1989. In fact, as I stoop outside the Fighting Cocks in Kingston, fine dining on the wizard’s crop and waiting to watch my buds in Dead Existence, i’m listening to Southern Discomfort and part of me thinks that this record might comprise some of the most groove-ridden music ever made.
[audio:http://staging.cvltnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/04-Southern-Discomfort.mp3|titles=EYEHATEGOD Southern Discomfort]
[audio:http://staging.cvltnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/08-Depress.mp3|titles=EYEHATEGOD Depress]
Southern Discomfort purports to be a collection of the Take As Needed For Pain demos which ended up as b-sides, splits and singles, as well as the out takes from the Dopesick sessions. On Southern Discomfort, however, the tracks are rawer than their Century Media counterparts, they’re broken to fuck and all in all, they just about pack a heavier punch. You get the best of both worlds with this record. It has all the doom and gloom of Take As Needed For Pain with the smack-ridden bite of tracks like Peace Thru War from Dopesick.
Read the rest of this SICK review after the jump!
You’ve really got to ask yourself whether Southern Discomfort is one of the stray cats of the EHG family or is this a record on a whole different level of fucked, a beast of it’s own wrong doing, compiling the recordings which were just too messed up for public consumption. I definitely prefer the crustier, half baked production of the tracks on this record and what the fuck is that art?! It looks like a smashed caveman skull.
There’s no telling how often Dragged Into Sunlight frequent to worship at the altar of EHG. Through those lonesome nights in 2008, travelling from show to show; drunk, high and asleep at the wheel, with at least 4 of us hiding in the pitch black rear of a van on top of our backline, the thought of having hacked at the same vein for over 20 years commands nothing but total respect. EHG are easily one of the hardest working bands in metal and they’ve meant business since day zero.
Taking care of business and dismantling the obvious, Southern Discomfort has that bluesy groove inherent to every other EHG track that you’ve heard. You’ve got the overdriven amplifier worship, a ship wreck of rusty bass tone and that massive, massive kick drum. A kick sound which is like having Bruce Lee punch you in the heart over and over again. And that, ladies and gents of the occult, is just track one – Ruptured Heart Theory.
The minutes are like hours drenched with Williams IX’s rottweiler-esq vocals. Mike Williams sounds like he’s chewing a fucking hamster whilst spitting the venom of a rattle snake. I’d definitely urge you to consider the words on this record. It’s instantly apparent that the reason your mind feels cancerous, is because you’re snorting uncut genius at volume 11 and the reason your chest hurts, is because you’ve been beating it like an ape for the entirety of tracks like Story of the Eye.
Whilst you’re snokeling the venom of the vocals on this record, it’s sometimes easy to forget that Mike Williams is an exceptionally accomplished musician, published author and most importantly, a down to earth “metal maniac”. One of the HIGHlights of this album has got to be the combination of ‘Blank/Shoplift’ into ONE track. Yeah, warp your mind around that. Bower’s feedback throughout sounds as smashed as a whore’s pelvis. It’s fucking disfigured. “Smoke a little grass, and play a lot of music”. I repeat “smoke a little grass, smoke a little grass, smoke a little grass and play a lot of music”.
The title track Southern Discomfort is one of my favourite EHG tracks of all time. It shares all of above standards, but this is one of those EHG tracks truly symbolic of a sound they own. You can’t replicate it. That would be like copying a tape onto another tape. Face the facts, Eyehategod own you. They don’t just own this sound, they invented it. At the same time, a track like Southern Discomfort thinks so far outside the box, it makes me want to mainline my whiskey and throw the glass off a wall. A total thunder storm from intro to end, the type that makes you want to punch the air whilst fucking a nun. And sure, you can make your guitar feedback, but can you make your guitar feedback like Jimmy Bower? No, and you’ll always live with that noose around your neck, that no matter what, your feedback will never sound as good as Jimmy Bower’s feedback. It doesn’t matter what amp you use, it’s because a) he’s in Eyehategod and b) he’s been commanding the Iommisphere since before you were foetus.
Then you got a track like Serving Time In the Middle of Nowhere. If I were to walk past a homeless person with a note in my hand that end riff kicked in at 2.44, I would snatch back my note and make him eat my entire shoe.
Southern Discomfort meanders like a creek and it doesn’t get more hideous than Dopesick Jam. The tone rolls with relentless punishment. The feedback is jagged like sipping from a broken bottle, this is misery served by the tonne, cold, wet and stinking like a lizard. Plus it’s like 11 minutes long, so if you’re not mentally or physically stoned by the end, you’re either working too hard or rolling too slow.
I can’t find fault with any EHG record, that’s because I grew up on a diet of NOLA till death and obscure black metal. I was probably the wrong person to write a review realistically, but fuck it. Mike, Jimmy, Patton, Joey, Mader, we salute you.
Eyehategod forever.
CVLT Nation say’s good looking out DRAGGED INTO SUNLIGHT!
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