by William York

Every Eyehategod album shares a few main ingredients in common: the slow, sludgy guitars, the indecipherable ranting of vocalist Michael Williams, the moaning feedback that introduces nearly every song, and the relentlessly bitter, broken-down mood. Take as Needed for Pain has all of that, but it is also the first to really bring out the Southern/blues-rock and Black Sabbath influences in full force. Compared to the rougher In the Name of Suffering, the guitars here are warmer and thicker sounding, while the actual riffs are much more distinguished and in some cases even catchy. There are also moments when they break into a swinging, mid-tempo Southern rock groove, which helps offset the slow pounding that otherwise predominates. Not counting the couple of looped spoken word collages, there isn't a whole lot to distinguish the tracks from one another. By the time it ends, the album just blurs into a big mound of corrosive, swampy doom metal riffage. But they sure do it well, and their conviction is hard to deny.