Music review: Eyehategod - Dopesick (1996)

Still in "heavier than your mom" territory with this one, but with an extra serving of negativity compared to yesterday's case. As expected from the fathers of hard NOLA sludge; or simply "sludge", really, since I can't let colorful beard metal vegetarian cyclists usurp a word they don't have much in common with.

Well, enough "not-so-old man yelling at cloud", let me tell you about Dopesick. First, it fixes most of the issues the two previous LPs showed: In the Name of Suffering was a mean gem, but very one note (to the point where it should have been a short EP) and Take as Needed for Pain, while more diverse, lost some of that viciousness to the new southern touch and ended up sounding more like a heat stroke than the previous "about to murder-suicide my family in the bayou swamps".

Dopesick recovers that all-important bleakness (I mean, just listen to the aptly named opener, "My Name Is God (I Hate You)"), does away with the very annoying interlude track of its predecessor but keeps the variety gains. The mood easily switches from funeral doom to hardcore punk, while tastefully restraining the aforementioned southern metal ingredient to the "Dixie Whiskey" and "Methamphetamine" tracks.

Those 37 minutes simply fly by when you're in the right mood. I am. Doubly so during those sleepless summer nights that fit that sound to a T.