Whore / Untitled

13
Boring sludge with awful production and okayish vocals.
30/100

"Whore", the only song on 13's side of this split, is definitely the worst song I've heard yet by 13 - in no small part due to the production, which is better suited for a (crappy) black metal demo, or perhaps a (slightly less crappy) rehearsal recording. It's thin, tinny, noisy, and renders half of the notes almost illegible, which simply doesn't work with 13's Grief-worshipping brand of sludge metal (not that it would work with any other genre) and makes the whole A-side downright grating to listen to.

Now with that out of the way, I'll get to the music itself. "Whore" starts off with a simple drum intro, which is drenched in guitar feedback and a couple poorly played notes, and thrives off of a couple slow, trudging and relentlessly basic Saint Vitus riffs that aren't even particularly downbeat or groovy, and just plod along like "dun, dun, dun, dun" over and over again. Snore. There really isn't much more to say about it because it's simply that boring and repetitive. The only relatively good thing about it is the vocals, which range from zombie rasps that wouldn't sound out of place on an OSDM album to hardcore screams to even demented whispers, you name it, but even they are completely neutered by the flat production.

All in all, this was almost agonizing on the first few listens, but after I got used to the awful production, it became just boring and generic, so a better production job wouldn't help much. Completionists only, since 13 has done much better songs.

Eyehategod
EHG delivers again.
70/100

I'll agree with the other reviewer, Eyehategod does sound kind of like a bunch of junkies playing Black Sabbath in a garage (not that it's a bad thing), but only on one song, "Serving Time in the Middle of Nowhere". And even then, the riffs are too ugly and brutal for me to compare them to Iommi's, more like a pissed-off and smacked-up Pentagram, and the bass lines remind me of even older acid rock (especially Cream) for some reason. Comparisons aside, "Serving Time..." is an awesome song with monster riffs and an even more monster groove, and it makes me bang my head like there's no tomorrow even despite the vocals sounding like a muffled and distorted pile of aural shit. I like this version quite a bit better than the one they recorded for the Gummo soundtrack, since the drumwork is a lot better here - there's this additional snare hit on the 3rd beat of the groove from the 5 second mark that just makes it sound so "phat", but is absent from the Gummo version, and the fills and frills here are simply more satisfying.

"Lack of Almost Everything", on the other hand, showcases Eyehategod's hardcorish side, it's got a main riff that's as fucking brutal as it is primitive and ugly (and it's up there with Hellhammer in those regards, though not at all similar), as well as a bunch of breakdowns, and Joe LaCaze bashes the skins like each one of them owes him a million dollars. There's a slower section in the middle, after another breakdown, with Bill Ward-esque drumming and a tripped-out Sabbath riff that all but reeks of pot smoke, but it doesn't last long, and the song goes back to its punky main riff after that. It sounds much better on Dopesick, sure, but that doesn't automatically make this version bad, since this split was released almost 2 years before Dopesick. So, if this song doesn't make you want to kill someone, do your best impression of John Bonham and Keith Moon's hypothetical bastard (in all senses of that word) son, or lift some weights, in other words, get you all angry and pumped up, then you must've reached goddamn Zen or something.

To sum it all up, the 13 song here is the absolute worst, most boring and worst-produced song I've heard by them, and if you want to hear the Eyehategod songs from here, you're better off just getting Dopesick and the Gummo soundtrack, since they've been re-recorded and re-released with better production. However, they are pretty awesome, and haven't been released anywhere else before this split, which is why I gave the Eyehategod side the 70% it deserves and not only a 5% "because the drumming is cooler". Recommended only for hardcore completionists and whoever's lucky enough to see this split in the freebie bin.

I owned this for years and did not know it was a split. I did not know that 13 was a band until I saw this release on Metal Archives. Both sides of the record sound like they could be done by the same band. Which is surprising because 13 has a female singer and Eyehategod are all men!

The sound here makes me think of a jam session in someone’s garage. It is very raw. It sounds live. That type of production is just fine for this type of music. Not only the recording, but the music itself reminds me of a jam session in a garage. Like when you first get a band together as a teenager and play some Black Sabbath riffs.

The best way for me to describe Eyehategod’s sound is this: It sounds like some junkies in a garage, ripping off Black Sabbath, with really bad vocals. There are some pretty cool riffs here, but the vocals pretty much ruin it for me. It just sounds like an angry drunk yelling or screaming. There is nothing technical or flashy here. It sounds like a jam session.

The 13 side is similar. Some nice heavy riffs, bad screaming vocals, and sloppy drums. The difference is that this side sounds more sloppy, and I think the vocals here are a little more interesting.

This is the kind of music you can sometimes hear at bars in Louisiana. It’s not bad if you like that kind of thing.