Live Review: Eyehategod, I Exist, Lo!

Sometimes a name says it all. LO! boasted a bottom end to match their moniker, churning out a stream of dirty metallic noise with no mercy or let up. With last year's debut LP, Look And Behold, doing great things, this is a band to watch.

The fact that I Exist are as comfortable supporting the kings of New Orleans sludge as they are tearing up the stage at a hardcore gig says something about the band's wide appeal. Canberra's kings of heavy crushed everything in front of them with a seemingly endless array of no nonsense riffs that were equal parts Crowbar and Cro-Mags. Constant gigging is making this outfit more formidable by the day. Big things await if they play it right.

That such a sparse crowd turned out for underground legends Eyehategod was perhaps a reminder that the quintet are ugly men playing very ugly music for very ugly people. If doom metal evokes images of broken landscapes and mysterious worlds, Eyehategod's brand of malignant sludge is the aural equivalent to lying in a rat-infested New Orleans slum with a cigarette hanging out your mouth and a dirty needle stuck in your arm. Nice. The boys opened their set with a statement of intent – a Greg Ginn-styled wall of feedback – and didn't let up for 90 minutes. With an acerbic and heroin-free Mike Williams at the helm, plus guitarist Jimmy Bower (also of Down) directing the chaos, the quintet delivered a concrete-heavy assault boasting a slight Southern swagger. While new songs like Medicine Noose got a rapturous response, it was the classic Take As Needed For Pain material that really set the pit alight. Thankfully, it was all here – Blank, $30 Bag, White Nigger and a downright nasty rendition of Sisterfucker cut a jagged swathe through the faithful, many of whom couldn't quite believe we were actually getting the chance to see these underground legends in the flesh.

Eyehategod had that element of danger to them that few bands can boast. You sensed that things could go very wrong for these miscreants at a moment's notice – and knowing the band's history, no doubt there are more dramas on the horizon. But that wasn't the case for their Sydney show. Eyehategod not only kept it together, they showed just how powerful a proposition they can be when the gods of sludge are on their side.