Buzzoven – Violence From The Vault

Buzzoven was a southern sludge band that’s perhaps best known for spawning the likes of Sourvein and Weedeater, although I gather that neither Dixie Dave nor Ramsey played on this release. As the title suggests, this is archived material, dug up from a demo tape recorded in the mid 90’s. Believe it or not, the band was signed to Roadrunner, if not at the time, then just a couple years prior.

Violence is somewhat reminiscent of the early Eyehategod demos gathered by Century Media on 2000’s 10 Years of Abuse…And Still Broke compilation, particularly in its transferred-from-cassette-tape sound quality. The band also shares early EHG’s affinity for using sound clips from movies; hell, the chorus of third track “Breed” is a clip from some film that I don’t even recognize, and gets kind of annoying in its overuse.

This 34-minute EP mixes short, spastic bursts of punky sludge like “Paintake” and “Breed” with some spacier stuff like “Mainline” and “Nod,” the latter of which had me nearly nodding off as it dragged on past the 15 minute mark, going nowhere fast. I’m sure it sounded great when they were playing it, though. Can I get some of what they were smoking?

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RATING: 6