There isn’t a whole lot of trashing or thrashing going to be happening in the column this week. There are more important things than making fun of the new Avenged Sevenfold or praising some strange black metal act from the other side of the world. Word came out late Friday evening that Mike IX Williams, frontman for seminal sludge act Eyehategod was in dire need of a liver transplant. EHG was one of the first bands that I got into when I seriously started looking at metal. Akin to a gateway drug, if you believe in that Reagan-era nonsense. Something about the miasmic, disenfranchised and disgusting music resonated young me to the core, a feeling that has become more focused and fine-edged but has not abated in the last two decades. I hurts me to think of someone who impacted my (and so many others) lives going out like this so if you can, please consider helping out.

That being said, “Masters of Legalized Confusion” is here to serve as a reminder of the legacy Mike and the rest of EHG have given us, so far. Turn it up. Loud.