In 1996, Eyehategod reconvened (with Vince LeBlanc on bass) for the chaotic Dopesick however, the band fell largely silent for some time afterward. After touring in support of the LP, the group went on an unofficial hiatus, with Bower joining Crowbar (as a drummer) and also playing in the Southern metal supergroup Down, Patton teaming up with Soilent Green, and Williams working as a writer for Metal Maniacs magazine. After the label dissolved, the band were approached by Century Media, which re-released In the Name of Suffering in 1992, followed by the more refined, though no less incendiary sophomore effort, 1993's Take as Needed for Pain, which was recorded with new bassist Mark Schultz. EHG issued their debut album, the raw and unrelenting In the Name of Suffering, in 1992 via the French label Intellectual Convulsion. The brainchild of guitarist Jimmy Bower and drummer Joe LaCaze, the group eventually grew into a quintet with the arrival of vocalist Michael Williams, lead guitarist Brian Patton, and bassist Steve Dale.

Since debuting in 1990 with In the Name of Suffering, the band have amassed a loyal following with potent and disorienting efforts like Take as Needed for Pain (1993), Confederacy of Ruined Lives (2000), and A History of Nomadic Behavior (2021).įormed in New Orleans in 1988, Eyehategod quickly ascended to the top tier of a Southern sludgecore scene that included bands like Crowbar and Down, all of whom were heavily influenced by Black Sabbath, Black Flag, and the Melvins. (“Infection is the way, disruptive crowd takes aim/ Burn down the rail yard house, destroy the U.S.A.”).An influential New Orleans sludge metal outfit, Eyehategod emerged in the early 1990s with an ugly and uncompromising blend of doomy, bluesy punk, and misanthropic metal that quickly pushed them to the fore of the fertile NOLA metal scene. Lyrically, the song - like most Eyehategod ditties – is cryptic and abstract, but it touches on the all-pervasive fears bred by an invisible germ storm sweeping through the nation and a society sickened by police brutality. The song starts with a chugging groove reminiscent of SST-era Soundgarden before erupting into a doomy minor pentatonic passage that wouldn’t sound out of place on an ‘80s Saint Vitus album. The first release from the album, “High Risk Trigger,” encapsulates the filth and damaged beauty of Eyehategod.

Like Eyehategod’s best albums, including 1993’s Take as Needed For Pain, 1996’s Dopesick and 2014’s comeback Eyehategod, the band’s first new full-length in seven years, A History of Nomadic Behavior, is a blowtorch-distortion and blues-saturated combination of mostly mid-paced songs pierced with scarring pain and disconsolate fury. They played and toured with some of their favorite bands, such as OFF!, Negative Approach, Sheer Terror, Corrosion of Conformity, AntiSeen and the Obsessed. and play exotic nations they’d never visited such as Indonesia, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Israel, Tasmania and more. They even back-burnered plans to finish the follow-up to 2014’s incendiary Eyehategod album in order to storm stages across the U.S.

Back in 2017, all that veteran hardcore/doom-slingers Eyehategod wanted to do was tour, and for about three years that’s all they did.

Eyehategod 1993