Hard Reviews 4
by Martin Popoff

Eyehategod - Southern Discomfort
(Century Media)

As the band contemplated break-up, aborted releases and success at side-projects, a scattering of 7" releases made the rounds to other labels. Here they are gathered, along with a few alternative versions of LP tracks, just so you wouldn't forget who define the left-hand path in New Orleans, just so you'd understand what muck lies underneath the more accessible sounds of Down, COC, Acid Bath, Soilent Green and Crowbar. Indeed, Eyehategod are the stoner rock glue that holds the scene slow, sluggish and avant garde, never destined to rise above Relapse band status due to the vomitory blech! of vocalist Michael D. Williams, who has taken to writing for Metal Maniacs magazine. Anyway, this gives you a proper stuporous phosphorous glimpse into what makes labels like Man's Ruin, The Music Cartel and Rise Above exist and click, and for a lot less money that it would take you to collect the singles. Plus, oddly, the sum total is a dog hair more accessible than the sum of Dopesick. Hail the nervy noiseniks!
Rating 7

Drunk Horse - Drunk Horse
(Man's Ruin)

Sure glad folks somehow keep finding interesting ways to make stoner rock. Glad but incredulous. Anyway, Drunk Horse remind me of the real thing, not the Sabbath stuff, but all the fringe bands from '70 to '72, only these guys have you imagining you've found the one rarity that is actually heavier than Deep Purple, but not as deliberate as the Sabs. It's almost like a metal version of Alice Cooper's Love It To Death, or a really metal version of Easy Action or Pretties For You, somewhat disassembled like '60s psyche but smothered in oven-mitted Kiss-like power chords, mebbe closer to the final two Amboy Dukes hamhockers. File with Leadfoot, Terra Firma and Clutch, all being time-travellers into an era where much metal was purely accidental, mental and occidental.
Rating 7.5

Hard Reviews Page 5