Originally written by Ian Chainey
Writing about Eyehategod has always been a difficult proposition for this reviewer because so much of what EHG does, so much of their appeal, is based on the mood they’re able to create and sustain. It’s the kind of mood you’d expect from a band that has been rumored to request heroin in their rider, a band so mired in misanthropy that they could turn even the peppiest office secretary into a rat poison-injecting gutter whore by Dopesick’s third track. Kind of like the best blues (and, dare I say, the best country), EHG always had a knack for making you feel like complete shit and unexplainably happy at the same time; an ultra cathartic listening experience based on the epiphany that everyone feels like the EHG at some point. Underneath the oh-so-good sludgy grooves, the tortured howls, and the dejection/the anger/the hate sits something sinister, but something inherently human; a troubling sense of self-destruction that every person has buried deep inside them. It’s what made them so great, so tough to write about, and, as For the Sick – A Tribute to Eyehategod shows, so damn tough to cover.
Not that you would expect (or necessarily want) bands to dig that deeply into purely existential matters on a tribute album. I mean, no band goes into such a recording thinking, “Finally! Now the world will hear our version of “Dancing Queen,” the one we’ve been doing an exhaustive study on for the past fifteen years!” Tributes just seem like fun diversions, a way for your average outfit to break up the monotony of band life and openly praise their influences; nothing more, nothing less. And that’s kind of where we, the consumer, usually go wrong because we expect so much more out of tribute albums. Maybe it’s because we unconsciously think that the equation GREAT BANDS + LEGENDARY BAND’S SONGS should equal an amazing listening experience. But, in my experience at least, tributes rarely turn out that way. They either overreach or they underachieve, but, in turn, disappointment is always reserved for those that expect more and those that are overly critical. So, what can you expect? More often than not, you’ll get one of these distinct tribute types: The reverential tribute (Requiems of Revulsion: A Tribute to Carcass), the shameless cash grab tribute (Encomium: A Tribute to Led Zeppelin), the quirky “Because we can!” curio tribute (Better Than the Beatles: A Tribute to the Shaggs), or the genuinely intriguing “Because we should!” tribute (In These Black Days: A Tribute to Black Sabbath). In a way, For the Sick is all of the above, but with a couple of twists.
The biggest twist is the amount of material contained within: thirty-four bands and thirty-five tracks (thirty-four covers and one original) spread across two CDs. For the Sick essentially pays tribute to nearly 5/8ths(!) of EHG’s total recorded output. And, while it’d be easy to level the “quantity over quality” complaint against it, the overall size of the album means there’s still a lot of quality here. But it’s not just the amount of bands, it’s the scope of bands asked to contribute that makes For the Sick a tad more intriguing than, say, a single disc compilation of EHG clones. There’s everything from the sludge disciples that are a natural fit (dot(.), Rue, etc.) to Hank Williams III channeling his Assjack side under his The Unholy 3 pseudonym (Curb executive: “You want to appear on a tribute to what?! Singing what?!”) to the kind of metalcore that elicits the same double-u-tee-eff response that people must’ve murmured when The Band called Neil Diamond to the stage during The Last Waltz (Really, One Dead Three Wounded? Really?).
Even with the bloated lineup though, For the Sick still falls victim to the predictable tribute split: half of the bands are content to do straight reads while the other half recast the material with their own “unique” spin. Unfortunately, and maybe because of that split and the size of the album, major highlights are rather few and far between. The Brutal Truth camp fairs the best: As a collective they cut an absolutely venomous and grinding version of “Sister Fucker,” while Rich Hoak’s Total Fucking Destruction puts “Kill Your Boss” through a sludge-to-thrash translator that results in a fun speedfest and Kevin Sharpe takes the mic on Buried at Sea’s previously released crushing cover of “White Nigger.” Elsewhere, D. Randall Blythe (fronting Halo of Locusts here) sounds positively revitalized, turning in his best work in years on “Dixie Whiskey,” Bloody Panda turns “Anxiety Hangover” into a near-funeral doom paced post-metal drone supported by organs (possibly what Bower’s Drip could’ve sounded like), and Ramesses supplies a bracing and appropriately lo-fi take on “Lack of Almost Everything.”
But, to be brutally honest, these highlights aren’t particularly interesting compared to the source material. Even the bands that take the most liberties—Left In Ruin does up “Southern Discomfort” like it’s a Cave In song and Ichabod ends fan favorite “Jack Ass In The Will Of God” on a strangely Acid Bath-esque note—can’t do anything that makes you reconsider the original in a whole new light, like all great covers are able to do. For the Sick plays out like a Cadbury Egg without the filling, as no one can recreate (or reinvent) what makes EHG so special: the mood. When you listen to the originals, with Mike Williams’s distinctive roar, Joey LaCaze beating the crap out of his kit, and Jimmy Bower’s filthy guitar tone, you realize that there’s something else there besides the music, besides the drugs, and besides the booze. One thinks it’s the result of their collective life experiences, one of the things that sets us all apart and makes us who we are, yet is still able to bring us all together because of the understanding that everyone feels like the EHG at some point…
…but, of course, that sounds incredibly hackneyed, lame, and is an example of taking a tribute far far far too seriously. Fans of Eyehategod and the bands involved might get a kick of this (completeists, I’m looking at you), but if you’ve never heard the band, start out with Take As Needed for Pain or Dopesick and go from there.
