It's all about pain and anger with a strong sense of rot to it all. The main force behind this album is loathing, everything from the angered haze of the guitar tone, to the boil of the riffs, to Mike William's strangling vocal conniptions, to the cover art and song titles themselves. The saturation of riffing on here means this album is gripping throughout with little in the way of breaks, and the staggering amount of grime, grit, and feedback only takes the force of the crunch up to eleven. As for the sound of the guitars, they are as thick and as muggy as the Louisiana swampland that bore this music, and just as fattening and delicious as the food from the same area.
There is a strong sense of kinesis to this thing that is reinforced by the constant influx of stomping grooves. You hear the riffs to "Shop Lift" or "$30 bag" and they awaken a primal desire to stagger and swing one's body around with maximum force and minimal coherency. These are the kinds of riffs that are perfect for starting a fight to on a hot humid summer day (bonus points if you happen to be high or hung-over). It also loads this thing up with a lot of opportunities for protracted headbanging. This very "push-and-shove" riffing, coupled with a very heated, oppressive, swampy guitar sound encapsulates the visceral feelings and the stressful environment Eyehategod were wrapped up in at the time. There's a greater sense of grooviness and bluesy undertones on here than on the first album which was geared towards naked hardcore-styled aggression. It's an extremely riff-centered album, with those being the main attraction and the meat of it all. What I mean by "it's concerned with beating the hell out of you", is that this album's rhythm is here to slug you about. In doing so, it laid out a solid, crushing, mud-soaked template for many a future sludge act to follow. The difference with Take as Needed for Pain is that this album is less concerned about drowning itself in a murk of low notes and raw production, and more concerned about dragging you down into their swamp of riffs and beating the living hell out of you. This sound of aggressive, drug-addled loathing set to down-tuned guitars was already the standard to follow given how rough, raw, and deliberately dirty their first album was.
Eyehategod's Take as Needed for Pain takes that feeling and runs with it, turning it into crushing, coiling, sweltering sludge.
You want to sway, to stomp, and to smash and all you're feeling is stress. Have you ever had one of those days where you feel like you're lost in an addled haze? It's hot, you're tired, you can't think straight, but god-dammit, you are MAD.
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